


Sea Legs

by SandyRoses



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Magic, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, And also kinda angsty, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Aside from the sirens everyone else is human, Crack, Cute, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Hong Jisoo is also a BAMF, Interspecies Relationship(s), Interspecies Romance, Joshua is Mysterious, Kidnapping, M/M, Magic, Minhyuk is only mentioned, Most of the ships don't show up till later, Multi, No Smut, Oh yeah Seungkwan is royalty, Other, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, POV Alternating, Polyamory Elements, Prince Seungkwan, Rated T for swearing, Seungri is the bad guy sue me, Siren Chwe Hansol, Siren Kwon Soonyoung, Siren Lee Chan, Siren Lee Jihoon, Siren Xu Minghao, Siren Yoon Jeonghan, Sirens, Sort Of, Wizards, Wonwoo is awkward and shy please be nice to him, Yoon Jeonghan is a BAMF, just a little bit, or are they, siren au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-20
Updated: 2020-02-29
Packaged: 2020-03-08 15:27:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 30
Words: 84,880
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18897427
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SandyRoses/pseuds/SandyRoses
Summary: Hansol knew, he KNEW he wasn't supposed to go up to the surface without someone with him. He KNEW it was dangerous, and yet, curse his curiosity, he did it anyway. And now he's stuck in a tank with only Minghao by his side, left to wonder if he'll ever see his home again.Seungkwan has his responsibilities as a prince. He knows his fate is to one day rule his kingdom and all its people with a kind, benevolent heart. But that's boring. He wants to work in the lab, where there are interesting things to do and see, much more fascinating subjects to study. He's always loved the water, and it's the only place he wants to work. He didn't count on sirens being held there though.Seungcheol thought he knew what he was doing. News flash: he didn't. Now he's conflicted and confused and pretty boys keep smiling at him like they know something he doesn't and he really can't get that siren's song (or his face) out of his head...~~~UPDATED ON THE 10TH, 20TH, and 30TH OF EVERY MONTH





	1. The Sound Of The Sea

**Author's Note:**

> Hi again guys!!! This story originally started out as a commission for a friend of mine, but we both decided it would be ok to share and I'm actually pretty proud of this story so far. This definitely isn't gonna be as heavy as Good Things (which, if you haven't read, you should go read!!), which is probably a bit of a relief oof bUT ANYWAY I hope you enjoy this! I love sirens and I love SVT soooooo why not put them together? Also, note that honestly the ships in this story aren't gonna be as emphasized; I worked more on the plot of this story. I promise they're gonna come up, but just...later. They will happen though!!!
> 
> Updates are probably gonna be on the 10th, 20th, and 30th of every month, so look forward to that. 
> 
> Please continue to support me in my writing! You guys are all amazing and I love you and I hope you enjoy~
> 
> Alsolowkeyhappymermay??

Seungcheol thought he knew what he was doing when they all set out to sea, on that high-tech boat with the big glass cases bolted to the deck. In theory, their mission was fairly simple: go out to where the ocean was deepest, where few men dared to sail, and capture some sirens. In practice, it sounded impossible. First of all, there was no concrete proof that sirens even existed. Second, those ships that went out too far out into the open ocean usually never returned.

But hey, working at the city’s best and most advanced marine biology center, Sonar Voyage Technology (aka SVT), pays good, so he was willing to overlook those factors. Plus he was curious as to if sirens existed, so he thought he might as well try.

Looking around at the small crew on the deck from where he was standing in the control room, a small grin curled his lips. Their marine tech had gotten so advanced that it only took a team of a few people to run a boat with sufficient training. Jun, Mingyu, and Seokmin definitely had the experience, having worked with Seungcheol practically since he got the job. They were his good friends, and with them he felt a little more hopeful about the prospect of finding a proper siren. Which still felt kind of impossible either way.

He turned his gaze out to the open ocean around him, the sky clear with clouds just barely lining the horizon. A bit farther away, a second boat trailed along, with the same purpose in mind. They were close to where they were supposed to be, only a new nautical miles off the cusp of what the locals called “the Drop” because of how the sea floor suddenly just cut off into cliffs and went much, much deeper than before. Even with their tech, they hadn’t yet been able to reach the bottom.

“You ready?” Minhyuk, one of the few other workers on the boat, asked as he walked up, shooting the unofficial captain a grin.

“As I’ll ever be,” Seungcheol shrugged, though he felt a bolt of excitement run through him. Hopefully, they would soon be back at the lab with a siren or two to study.

“We’re over the Drop!” Seokmin suddenly called from the deck, and Seungcheol gave a mock salute of acknowledgement.

“Alright, let’s get this party started,” he muttered to himself, bringing the ship to a stop right over where the seafloor descended into a deep, unexplored void.  “Jun! Get up here and watch the radars! Seokmin, Minhyuk, go out in a skiff; you know what to do! Mingyu, you come with me,” he ordered smoothly, and all of the men snapped to attention, scurrying to get into position.

Seungcheol felt all his nerves light up with eager anticipation as he rigged up the small skiff he and Mingyu would use. The little boat was sturdy for it’s size, equipped with a tank large enough to hold two human-sized bodies should they come across something. On the edge of the horizon, their sister vessel did the same.

“Ready?” he chuckled as Mingyu steered the little boat out farther into the open sea.

“Totally,” Mingyu grinned, looking especially puppy-like as he practically bounced up and down.

“Alright, alright, calm down, don’t make up capsize,” Seungcheol snorted, reaching out to pat Mingyu’s shoulder. Looking a little sheepish, Mingyu forced himself to stay still, but Seungcheol only laughed again. He was fond of the younger’s excitable tendencies, and his energy was usually a great mood-booster.

When they were a sufficient distance from their boats, Mingyu looked at him.

“Alright, so what now?” That was the iffy part of the whole operation: they didn’t really know how to or even if it was possible to somehow get the sirens to come to them.

“According to instructions, they’ll come at the smell of blood,” Seungcheol began slowly, and Mingyu shuddered. The kid wasn’t the fondest of blood, and Seungcheol patted his shoulder again in sympathy.

“I’ll do it, you just look away. And you’ll need to wear these.” From a compartment built into the bow of the skiff, he pulled out a pair of soundproof earbuds, handing them to Mingyu. “I have to listen to know if they’re coming. If you want my attention, tap my shoulder, and above all else, don’t let me get dragged into the water. If I start leaning over too far just shove some headphone over my ears, grab the fucker, and shove them into the tank.” It was kind of a crude plan, but it was the only one they had.

“Uh...ok,” Mingyu nodded, and Seungcheol clapped his shoulder again. When Mingyu had his earplugs in, he turned away, and Seungcheol withdrew a small, foldable knife from an inner pocket of his jacket. Hesitating for a second, he decided to make a tiny nick on the back of his left forearm, letting the blood slowly drip into the water. Not really a fan of seeing his own goddamn life juice fall into the ocean, he turned away, letting it flow until he decided he could pull his arm back and clean it off. When he had a bandage around it, he gave Mingyu a thumbs up, one that was returned. Now they just had to wait.

Seungcheol was a little excited, a little wary, and a little curious. He had to be the one listening so he could hear when the sirens were approaching, but he was kind of curious. What would a siren sing to him about? His greatest desires or something? Sex? Money? Uh...a dog? He figured he’d just have to wait and find out.

Surprisingly, they didn’t have to wait long. A small bubble rose and popped on the surface of the previously immaculate sea, and instantly Seungcheol tensed up. Mingyu, sensing his sudden alertness, did the same. Around them, more bubbles started popping, and very, very faintly, Seungcheol could hear singing, somewhere deep below the surface.

Fear started to creep in. What if they messed up? What if Mingyu didn’t catch him in time and he went overboard, down into the sea’s watery embrace of death? Would he even feel it? Or would he be too distracted with a siren’s song in his ears to care?

The water rippled, and Seungcheol took in a deep breath as the singing got louder. It was already such a beautiful melody, somehow foreign and nostalgic at the same time. He couldn’t make out the words, but the song by itself was enough to make him feel a little entranced.

He gave Mingyu a sort of “get ready” look, and the younger nodded, determination setting his mouth into a thin line. Seungcheol had to steel himself as well, taking a deep breath as the water started lapping against the sides of the skiff.

Cautiously, very cautiously, he peered over the side of the boat, looking into the water, hoping to maybe see a tail or some scales. He felt his heart freeze when he saw a face just below the surface, mouth moving, making those beautiful sounds that Seungcheol was already beginning to love but still couldn’t quite understand.

The siren’s face was nothing short of ethereal, and even through his startled surprise Seungcheol had to appreciate his high cheekbones, his dark, heavy-lidded eyes, his pretty lips that practically screamed to be kissed. Long, tawny hair floated around his neck, giving him an angelic look that Seungcheol couldn’t turn away from. He was _beautiful_.

Then his face breached the water, and Seungcheol finally heard him singing properly, no longer muffled by the sea. If he thought the siren’s face was angelic, it was nothing compared to his voice, alluring and breathy and dripping with everything he wanted. He found himself leaning closer unconsciously, but he didn’t care. His mind was wiped clean of everything except that lovely voice, calling him, beckoning him, summoning him closer.

Seungcheol couldn’t turn away. He couldn’t think of anything except the siren’s face and his voice, singing of so many tempting things, promising him pleasure and riches if he just moved a little closer. The siren raised a hand out of the water, and automatically, Seungcheol moved to let the siren cup his face with a hand that was pleasantly wet and cool.

The siren, gripping onto the edge of the skiff with his other hand, raised himself half out of the water, exposing a slender, pale chest that Seungcheol really wanted to kiss for some reason. He brought his face closer to Seungcheol’s, their lips almost brushing, and Seungcheol could feel his heart hammering wildly behind his ribs. If he just leaned out a little more, just a tiny bit, he could find out what it was like to kiss that angelic creature from the deep.

A hand wrenched him back before he could follow that train of thought, and a pathetic whine left him. The siren’s eyes widened for a second in surprise before he started singing again, breathy and sweet, trying to coax Seungcheol back to him. Seungcheol tried to go back, he really did, but something was pressed over his ears before he could move, cutting off all sound except for his heartbeat pounding in his ears.

Right. That was a siren. And sirens were dangerous. He came back to himself slowly, more than a little disoriented, trying to remember why his cheek felt wet. Right, the siren had touched him, put his hand on his cheek.

That had been much, much too close for Seungcheol’s liking. But he couldn’t dwell on it, because, when he and Mingyu were both a little stunned, the siren suddenly stiffened and dove back down, leaving them alone in an empty boat, panting a little.

Mingyu wordlessly patted his back in a kind of “you alright?” way and Seungcheol nodded, waving a hand as he sat up properly and slapped himself a couple times to regain his bearings. The siren’s face was ingrained into his memory, and he would probably dream of that voice for days.

But now they were siren-less, and they didn’t think trying a second time would be any more fruitful than the first, so they went back to the big boat in silence, each caught up in their own thoughts.

When they got back, Seungcheol was still a little shell-shocked, and he sat down the moment he could, putting his head in his hands and trying to erase the image of those lusty, alluring eyes right in front of his.

Unfortunately, Jun, Seokmin, and Minhyuk bounced up to him and Mingyu not long after, eagerly asking what they’d seen.

“No luck on our side,” Seokmin bemoaned in an exaggerated sigh, leaning on Jun’s shoulder. “You guys?”

“We uh...yeah, we found one,” Mingyu said uneasily, shooting the still-silent Seungcheol a look. “We didn’t catch it though, and, well, Seungcheol kinda...almost fell in.”

The other three exchanged a glance.

“What was it like, hearing a siren’s voice?” Jun asked carefully, prodding Seungcheol’s shoulder.

“...It was the most beautiful thing I’d ever heard in my entire life,” Seungcheol mumbled in a quiet, slightly strangled voice, head still in his hands. “He was the most beautiful thing I’d ever _seen_ in my life.”

They decided not to pry anymore. They let him sit and fester in his own confusion, still stunned and unhelpfully unresponsive. He stayed that way through the entire return journey, and he only just began to rouse himself when the boat pulled into the docks. Their sister vessel did the same beside them, and very distantly Seungcheol heard the sounds of cheering.

That did the trick, and, confusion growing into curiosity, he stood up, wondering what the hell Seungri (whose real name was Seunghyun but since there were two Seunghyun’s, he just went by his nickname) and his partners were yelling about.

“Two! Two we got two!” Enthusiastic cries met his ears and Seungcheol raised an eyebrow, surprised. They got two sirens? How? Who? What did they look like? He hurried over to the other boat and Daesung, one of the men working on it, eagerly waved him aboard.

“What about you? Did you get any?” he asked, a bright grin on his face, and Seungcheol shivered at the memory.

“Well, no, but we saw one and almost got it,” he mumbled apologetically. Daesung clapped his shoulder reassuringly.

“Well, don’t worry, we made up for it,” he joked. “Now c’mon, come see!” He dragged Seungcheol down below deck, where the room was lit with glowing blue light, illuminating the big tank against the wall.

Seungcheol’s eyes widened. In the tank were two sirens, both looking a little worse for the wear, glaring at the men outside the glass.

They both looked foreign, one very skinny with more oriental features, the other with bigger, rounder eyes and a sharp jawline. The oriental-looking one had the other shoved behind him, probably trying to protect him even though there was a nasty gash on his arm and his cheek was bleeding.

The most striking thing was their tails. The oriental one was patterned like a koi in violent blood red, pure white, and jet-black, with a fan-like end that thrashed in the water. The one with the big, scared eyes was a lovely brass color, as though his tail had been dipped in gold and edged with silver.

Perhaps the oriental one noticed him looking, because he bared a row of sharp teeth and sneered, moving more in front of the other siren. That was odd, Seungcheol thought, he’d never heard of sirens being particularly social creatures. But then again, he didn’t know much about sirens, no one did.

Still, why did they look so roughed-up? He turned to Seungri, the man in charge of the other boat, who used to be a policeman from a few towns over until he suddenly became a scientist. He was smirking proudly, arms folded as he looked at the two sirens.

“Seungri, sir, I mean no disrespect, but we’re supposed to handle them carefully,” he said delicately. Seungri was older than him, and by default had a higher position.

Seungri just shrugged. “Nothing we can’t fix. I mean look at them, they don’t even seem hurt.” He waved a hand carelessly at the oriental-looking siren, who glared venomously at him and, in one smooth, powerful move, slammed his tail against the glass. It didn’t break, didn’t even crack, but it made everyone in the room jump. He did it again and Seungcheol swallowed uneasily.

“Let’s get them into the lab,” he suggested, and everyone was quick to nod. Within 10 minutes they had the portable tank set on a cart, and they covered it with a cloth, not wanting any curious eyes to see. The last Seungcheol saw was the two sirens hugging each other, before the creamy cloth covered them from his sight.

“This feels kinda surreal,” Seokmin mumbled to him as he punched in the passcode to open the bay doors of the SVT lab. Seungcheol just kind of nodded dumbly, half on him still focused on the memory of an angelic voice calling him into the water…

“Yeah, well, get used to it, kid,” Youngbae, one of the men that had been on Seungri’s boat, said gently, patting Seokmin’s hair. Seokmin smiled weakly, shooting a glance at the covered tank as it was rolled slowly into the hangar-type area beyond the bay doors.

Another violent thump against the glass made them all jump, but Seungri slapped the tank back with a huff.

“He’s gonna hurt something if he keeps pounding the glass like that. It won’t break, y’know!” he added loudly, as if the sirens could actually hear or understand him. In response, there was just another loud thud. Seungcheol winced.

Another few passcodes and locked doors later, and the tank was being wheeled into a huge room with several massive, cylindrical tanks, stretching from the floor almost to the ceiling, all illuminated with soft blue light.

“I assume they’re both not going to be cooperative so we’re gonna have to knock ‘em out before we move them,” Seungri hummed, tapping the Seunghyun of the tank with one finger. Seungcheol winced again; that didn’t seem like a fun prospect.

“We should patch up the red and black one first,” Jun mumbled, sounding oddly subdued. “Check for injuries, yknow?” His eyes were a little distant, and Seungcheol blinked at him.

“Good idea,” Youngbae nodded, “we’re still gonna have to knock them out though. Any volunteers?” No one spoke, then Seungri sighed.

“Whatever, I’ll do it. Everyone put in your earbuds; I don’t trust these things not to attack us at first chance.” He picked up a small, gun-like object that Seungcheol knew held a sedative powerful enough to incapacitate a shark. He shivered a little.

“Alright, let’s do this,” Seungri muttered, tugging the cloth off of the tank. The two sirens, still holding each other close, looked up, blinking against the sudden light, and Seungri took the opportunity to throw open the tank lid and fire two precise shots into the arms of the surprised sirens. Seungcheol always forgot that Seungri used to be a police officer before he became a biologist.

The sirens didn’t even have the chance to move before their eyes rolled back and they slumped in the tank, obviously unconscious. For a second, everyone else held their breath, until they were sure the sirens wouldn’t suddenly jump up again and start singing.

“Seungcheol, you help me,” Jun said slowly, moving forward cautiously. He reached into the water very carefully, poking the oriental siren’s cheek. When he didn’t move, Jun gently tugged him out of the water and into his arms, huffing and stumbling slightly under his weight.

“Careful, they’re heavier than they look,” Jun called, setting the siren on a nearby examination table. Seungcheol just nodded, looking a little closer at the gold-colored siren still in the tank. He didn’t seem injured, just shaken up, which was good for them.

Following Jun’s actions, he hefted the siren up out of the water, raising an eyebrow at his weight. Were their tails made of solid muscle or something? He supposed they were, the probably had to be. After he set the siren on another table, Seokmin and Jiyong (again, one of the men on Seungri’s boat), wheeled the tables away into another room, where they examined the creatures they caught.

There was silence for a while.

“Well...that was….something,” Minhyuk finally mumbled, rubbing one arm anxiously.

“Yeah, that was...something,” Seungcheol echoed dumbly, still fixated on the memory of the pretty siren with the long hair and the tantalizing voice, their lips oh-so close to touching.


	2. To Love The Ocean

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seungkwan gets curious.

Seungkwan knew what it was like to love the sea. To be so infatuated with the water, to be drawn to it like there was a tether between him and the ocean. He had always, always loved the sea, ever since he first laid eyes on it.

Being the prince of a seaside city helped. His father funded research for marine biology, their marine tech was far more advanced than most other places’, which meant they could do a whole lot more regarding ocean exploration.

Seungkwan, above all else, knew he wanted to work with the water. It wasn’t necessarily didn’t want to be king, he just wanted to explore what the world was like under the surface _more_ , where old women whispered tales of sirens and mermaids. He didn’t really believe in those tales, but they were tempting anyway, just on principle.

Of course, being a prince with responsibilities, he couldn’t exactly follow his dreams. He had to stay at home and learn how to lead, just like his parents wanted. He thought it was dumb. If he was a prince, then he should be allowed to do what he liked, right?

It didn’t work that way, unfortunately, and that was why he was stuck by himself, learning about his city’s history. It was information that he would undoubtedly forget 30 minutes later.

“Seungkwan? Seungkwan! Were you daydreaming _again_?” The stern voice of his teacher broke him out of his thoughts about the ocean, and, somewhat guiltily, he looked up at her.

“...Maybe?” he said sheepishly, and she sighed.

“Seungkwan, I know you don’t think so, but learning about this place’s history is important. You need to know these things if you’re going to lead one day.”

“Ok but how?” Seungkwan protested, frowning. “What am I going to do, recite this history to someone like they’re going to test me? I should be out there, learning about the water! We depend on the ocean, we’re a _seaside_ _tow_ , and for some reason I have to be stuck in _here_?” It was an argument that he’d made many times, but no one listened.

Indeed, his teacher just sighed.

“Listen, Seungkwan, I know you want to study the ocean. But you’re a prince, whether you like it or not. You have a-”

“A big responsibility, yes, I know,” he mumbled, and she gave him a thin smile.

“Just pay attention till 5, then you’re allowed to do whatever you’d like for the rest of the day, sir,” she reminded, and he made a motion halfway between a shrug and a nod, eyes gravitating back to the window he’d been staring out of.

“That means looking at what we’re doing, Seungkwan.”

* * *

When the mansion’s massive clock finally rung five times, Seungkwan practically sprinted from his ethics class up to his room, dropping his study things messily onto his desk before grabbing a bag that he slung over his shoulders, along with his trusty pair of binoculars.

“Going out to the beach again, sir?” called one of the maids as he ran back down the hall. He gave a thumbs up and she waved, smiling. At least the maids have a good idea of what’s fun, Seungkwan thought to himself as he ducked under arms and through people to get to the library.

The thing about the library was, if one was to spend enough time searching, you could find a tiny, well-hidden door behind one of the oldest bookshelves, leading through a small tunnel that went out into the backyard of the mansion. Seungkwan had used it many a time to sneak out when he first found it, and he was pretty sure no one else knew about it.

When he pushed open the door, the first thing he did was check to see if anyone was around. Satisfied to see it empty, he quickly made his way over to the older section, where the wood smelled darker, richer, more earthy, where the books had yellow pages and were almost falling apart.

It was something right out of a crappy detective novel. All Seungkwan had to do was kneel down, search for a nearly-invisible panel a few inches off the floor, push it, and a little doorway would appear, sliding to the side to reveal the tunnel he’d become so familiar with. It was kind of funny but it was there and it worked, so he wasn’t about to complain.

After looking around again to make sure no one had witnessed him, he crawled into the tunnel on his hands and knees, and the panel slid shut behind him, shutting him off from the outside world and it’s light.

The first few times, he had panicked at the blackness that suddenly engulfed him. Now, he didn’t need anything but his sense of touch to guide him along the smooth floor, occasionally pausing to catch his breath.

Eventually, the tunnel started tilting upwards, and eagerly he shuffled along, feeling around until his hands found a button on the ceiling. He pressed it, and slowly, a soft grating noise hit his ears as another panel slid aside, letting light into the little tunnel. Blinking against the brightness, Seungkwan popped his head up, carefully looking to see if anyone was around.

There was no one, luckily, and Seungkwan hoisted himself up out of the tunnel, into the empty part of his mansion’s backyard that no one really ever bothered to clean up. The good thing was that it meant that no one ever saw the panel, hidden cleverly in the dirt.

Brushing the dust off of his pants, Seungkwan did another scan of the area before creeping over to the large fence surrounding the whole estate. There was a (suspiciously) convenient gap beneath it that Seungkwan was just small enough to wiggle under and, ignoring the way he knew it would ruin his shirt, he proceeded to wriggle through the gap until he was standing on the other side.

Technically, he didn’t need to sneak out like that, but it was fun and his go-to method of stress-relief. Whenever he was annoyed, he’d pretend like he was escaping a zombie apocalypse or something, then run down to the ocean. Plus, if he ran into his parents on the way out, they’d undoubtedly lecture him about how he needed to get his mind off of the sea and back onto his studies. He never listened.

He loved the ocean. Loved loved _loved_ the water. As he ran through the streets to the beach, he heard people calling his name, saying hello, and he shot them all smiles and waves. He liked interacting with the people too, more than his emotionally-distant father and overly-cautious mother. At least when he was out in town, he actually had friends and a decent relationship with his subjects-to-be.

One of his closer friends, a girl named Nayeon, ran up beside him, grinning.

“You going down to the beach again, Kwan?” she laughed, and he nodded, slowing down a little to walk beside her. She grinned wider, a little mischievously, and he smirked back.

“I might go with you, y’know. I heard the SVT lab brought back this huge tank, and some people are saying they found a siren!” At that, Seungkwan laughed.

“C’mon, Nayeon, sirens aren’t real. Did you even see the tank?”

“Well, technically no, but Tzuyu saw it, and she heard from Yewon who heard from Minki who heard from Kihyun that they found _something_ out there,” Nayeon insisted, and Seungkwan laughed again.

“Sounds...credible,” he chuckled, and Nayeon pouted at him. Seungkwan just waved a hand, eagerly making his way down the short flight of steps that led to the beach.

SVT. Sonar Voyage Technology. _That_ was where Seungkwan wanted to work, where they actually went out and did stuff on the ocean.

“Well, _your highness_ , I, for one, think Tzuyu’s right,” Nayeon huffed, hopping down the steps after him. Seungkwan huffed right back, giving her a look.

“I’d like some concrete proof, thank you very much,” he said haughtily, and she snickered.

“Then just go break into the lab,” she hummed, and his eyes snapped to her.

“Excuse me?! That’s a deathwish, from both my parents and the people in the lab! Haven’t you heard that one of the guys working there used to be a police officer? I don’t wanna get shot!” Nayeon frowned, pulling back a little.

“Sheesh, alright, calm down. Just like, pull rank or something. You’re the prince; you can go wherever you want, right?” Seungkwan sighed.

“I mean, I could, but my parents would probably find out and that’s the last thing I want. All they do is complain about how I don’t pay attention to my studies. It’s not my fault learning about diplomacy is the most boring thing ever,” he mumbled, kicking at a rock. Nayeon patted his shoulder sympathetically.

“Well, I’ll see if I can wheedle any more info out of Tzuyu anytime soon. I’ll keep you updated,” Nayeon hummed, leading the way out onto the pale yellow sand, dotted with the occasional shell here and there. Seungkwan gave her a grateful smile, following.

They walked in silence for a while, until they came to where a small cove made a tiny bay of pretty blue water, sheltered by an overhang of rock that was almost a cave but not quite. It was Seungkwan’s safe haven, his favorite place in the entire world.

“Well, I’m gonna go back home, I gotta study,” Nayeon said after skipping a couple rocks with him. “I’ll poke around, see if I can find anything out,” she added, and he gave her another thumbs up before she ran off.

Once she was gone, he sighed, turning back to the ocean. It was so beautiful, and the water in the tiny bay was crystal-clear. Rolling the legs of his pants up, Seungkwan carefully waded into the water, enjoying the cool feel against his calves. The sand was soft and fine under his feet, and the sunshine was warm on the top of his head.

Something on the horizon distracted him. Just a tiny blip, a bump that shouldn’t have been there, marring the otherwise perfectly smooth surface of the ocean. It made him pause, made his smile faltered slightly. It was strange.

He raised his binoculars up to his eyes, squinting at the little shape. There was no way it could have been a rock or something; maybe it was a buoy floating by?

Upon closer inspection, it looked like a head. Seungkwan took his binoculars away from his eyes for a second, blinked several times, then put them back. The shape was gone.

“...Must be imagining things,” he mumbled to himself, shaking his head. There was no way there would be someone swimming that far out, the riptides there were way too strong for any human.

_But what if they weren’t human?_

Seungkwan immediately dismissed the thought. First of all, sirens didn’t exist, and second of all, he wasn’t even sure if he’d seen something out there. The sun must have just been playing tricks on him.

He turned back to splashing in the water, but the thought didn’t leave his mind all day.

* * *

When he finally went home, the sun was casting a glittering stripe over the water and the sky was a watercolor canvas of pinks and blues and purples, blended together in the most lovely ways and shot through with streaks of gold. Seungkwan snapped a couple pictures before reluctantly making his way back home, the hems of his pants a little damp and his legs smelling of saltwater.

When he walked inside, he was immediately descended upon by his mother, who was stern-faced and didn’t look impressed.

“Seungkwan,” she began slowly, putting her hands on her hips, “were you on the beach again?” She was just being protective, Seungkwan knew, but she had a way with her tone that always made him feel small.

“...Yes?” he mumbled awkwardly, not in the mood to listen to her rant. “Nayeon was with me mom, I was _fine_ ,” he sighed, seeing a lecture in the furrows of her brow. It was a lecture he’d gotten too many times to count, always about him somehow being reckless for literally just standing on the sand.

His mom sighed, petting his hair. “Seungkwan, you know it’s not safe for you out there…”

“How is it not safe?” Seungkwan said loudly, putting his own hands on his hips. “I know literally everyone in that town, and I highly, highly doubt one of them is going to attack me or something. I know how to swim, and I never go out into the water after dark. I’m not stupid, and I’m always careful. I don’t want to be holed up here forever, mom, I just want to work at the lab!” He was edging onto the territory of whiny, but it never worked.

“Son, I’ve told you a thousand times why you can’t do that, and I’ll tell you again and again until you get it,” she huffed. Seungkwan glared at the floor. He could never get through to her.

“Don’t bother, I know the speech by heart,” he sighed, rolling his eyes and stepping away from her. “I’m gonna go sleep now. G’night, mom.”

“...Good night, Seungkwan.” She sounded so tired, and for a second Seungkwan felt guilty, but he pushed it away. Why couldn’t she just let him have this one thing? It wasn’t like he was actually going to get hurt by wading in the shallows; there wasn’t anything out there to hurt him!

He ran lightly up to his room, depositing his binoculars onto a beg by his bed and setting his bag down on his dresser. Well, at least he got to go outside at all.

A sudden wave of curiosity overtook him, and he grabbed his laptop from the corner of his bed, plopping down onto the comfortable sheets and quickly pulling up a new tab. Looking up the lab their city was so famous for, he was surprised to see new news headlines blaring at him.

“SVT Laboratory: Undergoing A New Experiment?”

“Sonar Voyage Technology’s Shocking New Discovery To Be Revealed.”

“Is SVT Harboring Secrets Behind Locked Doors?”

All very strange titles, but ones that quickly caught Seungkwan’s attention nonetheless. He eagerly ran through the sites, which were basically about the same thing: apparently someone had seen the SVT workers wheeling in a big covered tank, and as usual, the press had exploded.

_What if Nayeon was right?_

Seungkwan snorted. The news was just over-exaggerating things as usual; it would likely all blow over in a week or two. Still, the idea that there was something hidden in that lab wiggled into his mind and stayed there, just a tiny thought in the back of his conscious.

It didn’t leave his mind as he got ready to sleep, but he tried not to think about it too hard. It was just some random thing that had no real significance, no biggie.

Still, as he laid in bed, watching the sky darken outside his window, he couldn’t fall asleep. He ended up sitting back up and pulling his laptop close again, fingers flying over the keyboard.

Sirens. There were plenty of sites about them, all with different points of view, mostly unhelpful. But a couple pages into the deep web, he came across a small, simple page with...oddly factual statements. It all seemed very scientific, and the more Seungkwan looked, the more his eyes widened.

There was no way sirens could be real, and yet here this site was, telling him everything from migration habits to feeding preferences. It just seemed so strange. It was even more strange when he couldn’t find an author for the site. The only semblance of an author was two initials shoved into the bottom right corner: “J.W.” J.W? Who was that? And why did Seungkwan feel like he’d seen those two initials before?

He racked his brain for a while, even searched up the initials, but nothing came up. Very unhelpful. Eventually, he gave up, no less satisfied than before, mind buzzing with conflicting ideas. As he plugged his laptop in and laid back down, his head swirled with a thousand thoughts, all of them going back to the strange...thing he’d seen out in the water. Had it even been real?

He didn’t know. He almost didn’t want to know.

“God, what am I thinking?” he muttered to himself, rolling over and staring at the wall. There was no use dwelling on something that didn’t have concrete proof, right? No use thinking about something trivial like a cloth-covered tank and a possible scandal behind the doors of his dream laboratory.

He closed his eyes and sighed, trying to ward off those stupid intrusive thoughts. They wouldn’t do him any good in getting out of being a prince. He just had to deal with it.

He was still curious, and by the time he fell asleep, his dreams were plagued with scales and singing voices and the gold of a summer sunset.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story is gonna be told through Seungcheol, Seungkwan, and Hansol's points of view, so next up is ya boi Vernon's chapter on the 10th!! ^-^


	3. Guilt

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hansol has always been a little too curious for his own good.

Hansol _knew_ he wasn’t supposed to go up to the surface. He _knew_ his voice wasn’t strong enough, _knew_ that he was supposed to leave hunting to Jeonghan and Jihoon and Soonyoung. He _knew_ that.

...He did it anyway. His stupid curiosity had gotten the best of him, and now it was all his fault that he and Minghao had gotten captured, all his fault that Jeonghan was probably having a mental breakdown somewhere in the ocean. He’d never been so guilty.

Minghao made sure he felt guilty. After being yelled at for a solid 10 minutes, Minghao had finally hugged him and sternly told him to never do anything stupid without permission again. Hansol agreed instantly.

There was guilt, and there was fear. An intense, pressing feeling of fear. He remembered exactly what had happened. He’d smelled the tang of blood in the water, they all had, and like an idiot he’d gone up to see, despite Chan warning him to stay in the deep water. He remembered the shadow of the little boat on the surface, tempting and teasing him in it’s own way. He’d approached slowly, wondering what the little vessel even was, and then before he knew it something shot into the water and wrapped tightly around his arms.

Minghao got to him a split second too late. Hansol was being hoisted out of the water by dry, foreign hands, and though he shrieked and struggled it was no use. Minghao even did his best to tip the boat over, but he got caught too, entangled in strange tendrils that burned and dug into his skin, chafing when he moved. He and Minghao got shoved into a tiny, dark enclosure, and the bindings slipped off their arms, leaving red marks in their place, but they barely had enough room to move anyway.

Minghao had screeched and thrashed up a storm, but Hansol had been too afraid to even breathe, his gills fluttering erratically. Thankfully, they had been placed into water, but it was stale water, water that irritated his gills and felt hard to breathe in, and he could smell Minghao’s blood in it. Eventually Minghao fell silent too, panting hard, and they didn’t speak. They could feel the boat rocking, could hear cheering, but they couldn’t understand any of it. Even though Hansol had a good knowledge of the Land-Walker’s language, it was too muffled to make out.

What he could hear was Minghao cursing violently under his breath in his own language. The angry clicking resonated in the tiny space, and Hansol had never felt so bad.

“I’m sorry,” he’d clicked back, over and over, “I’m so sorry.” What else could he say?

Eventually Minghao quieted, and Hansol felt a hand on his arm, moving to hold his shoulder.

“We’re gonna get out of here if it’s the last thing we do,” he’d growled, more protective than angry, and Hansol nodded meekly. It was always best to obey an upset, protective Minghao.

When they felt the boat stop they’d been confused, then the tiny enclosure was being opened. Before Minghao could even draw breath to sing them to sleep, more bindings wrapped around their arms, and somehow Minghao got a cut across his cheek. They were being carried again, up to a thankfully bigger tank. Oddly enough, no amount of singing or shrieking on Minghao’s part seemed to work on the Land-Walkers, and they were shoved into the tank without so much as a smirk from one of the uglier ones.

“...That makes no sense. Land-Walkers are stupid. They should be dead right now, or at the very least writhing in pain,” Minghao had mumbled. Hansol had made a sympathetic noise, hesitantly reaching to hold Minghao’s hand. Minghao had let him.

The tank was bigger, luckily, but the water was still stale and kind of bitter, badly-circulated. Hansol had to take deeper breaths to get enough air into his lungs, and even so he found himself a little light-headed.

“Stay strong, Sol, we need to get out of here,” had been Minghao’s constant mantra. It had helped a little.

When they felt the boat come to a stop again, they’d been confused, and Minghao had pushed Hansol behind him, baring his teeth at the 10 new Land-Walkers that came in. They talked for a little while, but Hansol noticed a couple things. The one with the strange, sleepy doe eyes and red lips kept looking oddly anxious, and the pretty one that looked like he would come from Minghao’s part of the ocean kept staring blankly at Minghao, eyes wide and glazed over.

Then a cloth had been thrown over their tank, and they were being taken to yet another place they didn’t know. Judging from the change in light, they were outside, but _where_? Where were they going? Where were they being taken? What was going to happen to them?

When they finally stopped again, Hansol felt nauseous in ways he’d never felt before, fear making his heart beat wildly. The light outside their tank was blue now, and again, Hansol wondered where they were. They heard talking, heard something tapping the lid of the tank, and they flinched away from it. Minghao hugged him close protectively, hissing at whatever was around them. Hansol clung back just as tight, unsure and uneasy.

Then the cloth was suddenly torn from over the tank, the lid was thrown open, and Hansol had a split second to register the Land-Walkers around them before he felt a stinging pain in his arm. The pain suddenly faded and he felt incredibly drowsy, though he fought against it with all his consciousness.

The last thing he saw was the apologetic face of the doe-eyed Land-Walker, unable to meet his eyes.

* * *

Much, much later, he found himself alone, in a new tank, bigger and taller and rounder. There was more than enough room to stretch and swim around, but there was no Minghao.

That was what made him panic. Where was Minghao? What had those Land-Walkers done to him? Was he alright?

“Minghao!? Minghao, where are you?! Are you alright?!” He swam frantically around the tank, to no avail. There was no Minghao, and only a couple bright fish accompanied him.

He sunk to the bottom of the tank, devastated and afraid. What had happened to Minghao? Was he alright? Hansol sure hoped so. More anxious than ever, he hugged his tail close, looking around again. There was a large clump of seaweed near the edge of the tank, next to a big boulder, and he quickly swam over, wedging himself between the rock and the glass to hide himself.

Well what was he going to do now? He didn’t know how long he’d been out, he didn’t know where Minghao was, and there was no way to contact any of the rest of his pod. He was essentially a beached whale. The comparison made him grimace and he shrunk further behind the boulder, curling up. The gold of his tail glinted and shined and he sighed at himself, berating his curiosity. Why did he always stick his nose into dangerous things? Jeonghan always told him he was going to get himself killed one day, and this felt like the ultimate way to emphasize the older siren’s words.

How he missed Jeonghan. And Minghao. And Soonyoung, and Jihoon, and Chan. Their little pod had been together for years, ever since Jeonghan decided to take upon himself the duty of gathering up a group of ragtag, unattached young sirens and take them under his fins. It had been a bonding experience, to say the least.

God, he just wanted to get out of there. But he couldn’t; he had no idea how to. Minghao was smarter than him in many aspects, more experienced, and once again Hansol cursed his naive curiosity. Clicking angrily at himself under his breath, he didn’t notice someone approaching the tank.

That was why he jumped so badly when a hand tapped the glass. Startled, he curled further in on himself, not trusting anyone that wasn’t Minghao. The hand tapped again, and he ignored it. He did take the chance to glance for a second out of his hiding spot, to see the doe-eyed Land-Walker from before standing there, outside the glass on the other side of his tank, still looking apologetic but mostly curious and a little confused.

Hansol didn’t trust him. Nor did he trust the sharp-nosed Land-Walker that came up behind him, saying something quietly into his ear before walking off again. But the doe-eyed one stayed. He just stayed and kind of waited awkwardly. He was so strange. Even stranger when Hansol watched him sit down on the floor and peer into the tank, doing nothing else.

From there it was a silent battle of wills as to who would move first. Hansol was determined not to lose. He would not let his curiosity get the best of him a second time. He couldn’t.

So when the doe-eyed Land-Walker stood up, he didn’t move from his position between the boulder and the glass, too wary and too cautious He’d learned his lesson. He wouldn’t move. He couldn’t.

His eyes widened when he saw Minghao, lying limp on what looked like a moving platform, his eyes closed and tail dragging on the floor. His arm was bandaged up and the cut on his cheek had been patched with some kind of weird white seal. The Land-Walkers pushing the moving platform were laughing, looking smug, and anger bubbled alongside the fear and anxiety in Hansol’s gut. What had they done to Minghao?

He broke. He swam quickly over to the other side of the tank, ignoring how his muscles protested after being scrunched up for so long, and banged hard on the glass, calling for Minghao, clicking desperately in both his language and the Land-Walker’s, wondering if maybe they would understand him.

The pretty Land-Walker stared at him, wide-eyed. Hansol just kept clicking frantically, kept hitting the glass even though his hands started to hurt. If he had tear ducts, he probably would have started crying, but they would have been washed away by the water around him anyway.

“Minghao, Minghao, wake up, Minghao wake up!” he cried, still weakly beating his palms against the glass.

He flinched back violently when something long, thin, and dark tapped against his tank. It was shaped weirdly, in a shallow L-shape, and there was a hand holding the short part of the L, resting against a tiny, curved...thing. Whatever it was, Hansol was instinctively scared of it and the Land-Walker holding it, who was smirking darkly.

The doe-eyed Land-Walker put a hand on the arm of the smirking one, looking angry, and Hansol swam backwards a little, not wanting to get hurt but still desperate to get to Minghao.

The pretty Land-Walker suddenly stepped up to the glass, and Hansol flinched further back. He watched as the pretty Land-Walker pointed to Minghao, then gave him a thumbs up, saying something that Hansol couldn’t hear through the glass. He tapped his ear and shook his head with a frown, confused. Was Minghao ok? Was that what the pretty Land-Walker was trying to tell him?

The pretty Land-Walker frowned back, but he didn’t look mad, just a little uncertain. He turned to the sharp-nosed Land-Walker, exchanged a few words, then walked off, leaving Hansol even more perplexed.

When the pretty Land-Walker came back, holding a sheet of something white, he pressed it up to the glass, and in spite of his better judgement Hansol swam forward to peer at it, making out symbols through the glass, a little distorted because of the curve of the tank.

Letters. Land-Walker letters. He knew how to speak the language, Jeonghan had taught him, but their symbol system was still a little new. Jeonghan had only gotten him up to M before he decided to be stupid and got himself caught.

“H-E...curvy line...circle...K,” Hansol mumbled to himself. “He-something-K? He’s ok?” He looked up at the pretty Land-Walker, and he couldn’t hide the hope from his eyes. He pointed urgently at Minghao, then tapped his own arm where Minghao’s bandage was, and the pretty Land-Walker nodded, smiling at him, giving him another thumbs up.

So Minghao was alright. Unconscious but alright. Relief flooded Hansol’s bones. He sank back, swimming away from the glass, and the pretty Land-Walker watched him with curious, non-threatening eyes. Hansol still didn’t trust him, but he was grateful.

He started panicking again when they started moving Minghao away, and he swam back to the glass, hitting it again and shaking his head. If they took Minghao away then _he_ wouldn’t be ok. They couldn’t take Minghao away from him; he was the only friendly person Hansol knew in that strange room.

“No, no don’t take him away!” His cries fell on deaf ears as they pushed Minghao over to another tank a few tail-lengths away, made in much the same fashion. They pushed his little moving platform onto another platform, one that somehow moved up into the air. A little entranced, Hansol fell silent, watching them move seemingly without effort. Could Land-Walkers fly? He didn’t know that.

He bristled when they suddenly dumped Minghao into the tank with a splash that even Hansol could hear. He winced at the sound, but at least now that Minghao was in the water, the Land-Walkers couldn’t touch him.

The pretty Land-Walker tapped the glass gently, and Hansol jumped again. He watched as the white sheet got pressed up against the tank once more, and he cautiously came forward to read it.

“H-E’-L-L B-E...circle...K. H-E’-L-L...two curves...A-K-E...one curve, weird bump on a stick...another curvy line...two circles...three slashes.” Well that didn’t make much sense. The first sentence he could guess, “he’ll be ok”. The second? Nope.

He shook his head in a sort of apologetic way, giving the pretty Land-Walker a shrug and once again tapping his temple and shaking his head in a universal motion of _I don’t understand_. The pretty Land-Walker frowned again, putting his hands on his hips, pushing out his lips.

He moved back in surprise when the sharp-nosed Land-Walker moved forward, and instinctively Hansol moved back as well, but his need to know kept him from hiding as the sharp-nosed Land-Walker pointed at something on the wall. Hansol’s eyes followed, landing upon a rectangular device with big red symbols on it.

Hansol guessed they were numbers. He knew numbers; Jeonghan had taught him numbers first.

“Five, three, three,” he mumbled to himself. He looked back at the sharp-nosed Land-Walker, a little confused. He tapped his temple questioningly, and Hansol nodded. He could read their strange numbers. The sharp-nosed Land-Walker smiled really brightly, and Hansol was honestly a little tempted to smile back.

He beat back the small urge, focusing instead on the numbers being drawn on the white sheet.

“Six, one, five,” he read aloud, brow furrowed in concentration. What did those numbers mean? He watched as the sharp-nosed Land-Walker once again pointed to the numbers on the wall, then to the ones on the sheet. Then he pointed at Minghao and made an exaggerated motion of waking up, going so far as to faux-yawn and stretch his arms.

Hansol blinked. When the numbers on the wall looked like the ones on the white sheet, then Minghao would wake up? He pointed hesitantly at Minghao, just to make sure, and the two Land-Walkers nodded.

Hansol sank to the floor of the tank, breathing out a loud sigh of relief. So Minghao would be alright. He was just asleep. He pulled his tail close and held up a shaky thumbs up, indicating he understood. He didn’t look up to see their reactions, but he could hear garbled speech, excited and loud.

Another hand tapped the glass, and raised his head to see the doe-eyed Land-Walker smiling gently at him. The Land-Walker pointed slowly at him, then gave him a thumbs up. Hansol blinked. What did that mean? He squinted when he saw the Land-Walker’s mouth moving. He certainly wasn’t the best at lip-reading, but he could try.

“...You...be...ok? You’ll be ok?” It could have been a lie. Heck, it was probably a lie. But he pointed at himself and the doe-eyed Land-Walker nodded, smiling a little brighter, and Hansol couldn’t help but feel a little better. He gave a weak smile of his own, and the three Land-Walkers in front of his tank smiled back.

His eyes gravitated over to Minghao’s tank, and his smile fell. He wanted to be with Minghao. Minghao made him feel safe. He wanted to be back in the ocean. He would never go back to the surface again if it meant he could be back, safe at home under Jeonghan’s arm and Jihoon’s careful, watching gaze.

There was another clinking on his tank, not from a hand. He flinched back when he saw the same strange L-shaped thing from before. He didn’t know what it was but it scared him. What scared him more was the look on the Land-Walker holding it. It was a look that clearly said _stay in line or else_. Hansol shrunk back.

Then, oddly enough, the doe-eyed Land-Walker slapped the thing away from the glass, raising his voice to a reprimanding tone. They argued for a few seconds, then the Land-Walker with the scary expression huffed and walked off, shoving the device into a loop on his clothing.

The doe-eyed Land-Walker sighed, then gave Hansol another small smile. It didn’t particularly do anything to reassure Hansol, but it was kind of nice, to see even a tiny bit of a friendly face.

He still didn’t trust them, but it didn’t stop the bolt of unease that ran through him when the three smiling Land-Walkers left the room, turning off the lights behind them and leaving Hansol alone, floating in a tank where his only company was a few dumb-looking fish.

He would never even _think_ of the surface again if it meant he could get him and Minghao out of there.


	4. Baby Steps (Is That Appropriate?)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seungcheol and friends learn that the sirens are smarter than expected.

Seungcheol awoke, as he always did, right at the ass-crack of dawn, the ungodly hours where even Seokmin’s smile didn’t appear until several hours later. But hey, working at a place that requires your presence all day is draining, so he didn’t blame Seokmin, who could only be so cheery.

Still, today he was excited, because there were two real live sirens just waiting to be examined and observed in the lab, and he, for once, was eager to get a move on.

Once he’d gotten out of bed and into his car, the streets were empty as they always were early in the morning, but when Seungcheol pulled into the parking lot his car wasn’t the only one there.

When he unlocked the door to the holding room, he found Jun, sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of the oriental-looking siren’s tank, his eyes wide and unblinking as he scribbled something down on a sheet of paper in his lap.

That’s when he registered the tapping. It was quiet and constant, just...there. The oriental siren was awake, so was the gold one, and they were just staring at each other, fingernails tap tap tapping on the glass of their tanks.

“‘S not morse,” Jun mumbled from his spot on the floor. “Checked that already. It’s- it’s their own language. It’s incredible. They’re so much more intelligent than we thought.”

“...Jun, did you sleep at all last night?”

“Sleep? Who’s she? I only know the all-encompassing void. Anyway, do me a huge favor and get me some coffee. I’ve been writing down these taps all night, ever since this one woke up.” He nodded his head to the oriental siren, who glared briefly at them both before continuing to tap on the glass in quick, staccato rhythms.

Seungcheol, far too used to Jun’s frequent all-nighters to be alarmed anymore, only sighed, walking back up to the lobby to grab the man his coffee. On the way he ran into Minhyuk, who seemed sleepy but elated.

“Seokmin’s on his way in; I saw him earlier,” Minhyuk added as they walked back down, holding steaming cups of coffee for all of them. “And Daesung too.”

“Solid, then they can help me tell Jun to close his eyes for three seconds so he doesn’t pass out,” Seungcheol huffed, shouldering open the door once Minhyuk had unlocked it. “Jun! Come get your coffee-”

“Shh! Oh come on, you made them stop,” Jun whined, throwing his hands up in the air as the two sirens backed away from the glass. He leaned backwards, giving Seungcheol an upside down pouty look that was funnier than probably intended. Seungcheol did his best not to laugh.

“So did you manage to translate it?” he asked instead, trying to withhold a grin. Jun gave him a dry look.

“Do I look like a computer decryptor to you? This isn’t morse code, Seungcheol, and we’ve no base to start off of. They might not even use our alphabet for heaven’s sake.”

“But he understood the numbers, and it looked like he could read,” Seungcheol pointed out, nodding his head at the golden siren, who was watching them warily, half hidden in the seaweed at the bottom of his tank.

“Yeah, well, that’s not concrete proof. We’ll have to see if either of them can actually understand us. Hopefully when they’re not so...hostile.” He gave the oriental siren a pointed look, and he responded by twitching his tail threateningly at the glass and folding his arms.

“They act so human,” came Seokmin’s voice next, startling them all. “Yesterday, there was definitely some basic emotion from the gold one. That’s so...cool.”

“Well, now they’re ours to study, so we can test out all we want,” Seungri hummed, coming in from a side door. Seungcheol blinked at him, somewhat reproachfully.

“Within reason. They’re living creatures,” he reminded, and Seungri nodded.

“Of course,” he said amiably, waving a hand. Seungcheol didn’t feel all that assured; Seungri had always been a bit on the...violent side.

“We should give them names,” Seokmin piped up, bouncing forward to smile at the gold siren. “Or do you think they already have names?”

“Judging by their intelligence I find it highly likely for them to have names. I mean, dolphins name themselves, so I don’t find it hard to think that sirens might too,” Jun hummed, standing up and stretching. “I don’t know how we’ll find out. We can just give them number names for now.”

“That feels so...impersonal,” Seokmin pouted, but he shrugged and nodded anyway. “We should just ask, shouldn’t we? Someone get me another piece of paper.”

While Minhyuk quickly darted off to grab a marker and a piece of paper, Seungcheol observed the gold siren in the tank closer to them.

He seemed warily curious, like a child poking out from behind their parent’s leg. There was a fluffy tuft of hair that always floated straight up on his head, and it was kind of endearing. In the other tank, the oriental-looking siren had a longer face, lips pursed in a thin, unhappy line as his dorsal and pelvic fins flicked out erratically. Upon closer inspection, Seungcheol noticed they had gills, two slits on either side of their necks that moved with the rise and fall of their chests.

“Alright, let’s see what he knows!” Seokmin called, bouncing back over, marker and paper in hand. “Ok, how should we do this?”

“Just ask,” Jun hummed, hoisting his clipboard further up his hip and readying his pencil to take notes.

“What’s...your...name,” Seokmin mumbled aloud as he wrote, and when done he pressed it up to the glass, giving the gold siren a bright smile.

Seungcheol watched the siren swim cautiously up to the glass, nose almost pressed to it as he squinted at the characters. He was mouthing the letters to himself, but paused every so often, like he didn’t understand part of the word. The siren frowned, blinking a couple times, then shook his head and tapped his temple.

“That’s kinda weird. He could read what I wrote yesterday,” Seokmin huffed, lowering the paper.

“Maybe he can only read certain letters,” Jun mumbled, scribbling furiously. “That’s still _incredible_ though, for them to learn human language like this. That’s _amazing_. _Incredible_ ,” he muttered again, in full scientist-mode. Seungcheol chuckled, taking the paper from Seokmin.

“How about we write out the alphabet and see what he can read,” he suggested, already writing the letters down.

“See if who can read what?” came Mingyu’s sleepy voice, appearing suddenly in the doorway.

“This one can read!” Jun said excitedly, tugging Mingyu over by the sleeve and pointing to the gold siren. “And he and the red one were conversing earlier, through their own version of morse code. They were tapping on the glass, back and forth. We’re trying to see if they can read the whole alphabet or just parts of it.”

“...Oh. That’s cool,” Mingyu mumbled, squinting at the gold siren. “I was back tying up the boats because you idiots left them.”

“Aw, cleaning up for us? So thoughtful,” Minhyuk chuckled, and Mingyu glared half-heartedly at them before watching as Seungcheol pressed the rows of letters up to the glass.

Seungcheol stared as the siren peered at the letters. His lips mouthed sounds silently, until he kept them together. He pointed a sharp fingernail at one of the letters, keeping his lips together.

“M? Does he know up to M?” Jun asked quickly, still scribbling away.

“I don’t know, I’ll check,” Seungcheol huffed, circling the letters up to M and pressing the paper back to the glass. He tapped his temple; _do you understand?_

The siren’s lips twitched up into a small smile, and he nodded, mirroring the motion. Seungcheol stepped back from the glass, somewhat amazed.

“Yeah, he knows up to M,” he clarified, and Jun’s eyes went wide.

“That’s incredible,” he said again, putting a hand on his chest. “Wow. What about the other one?” His eyes drifted back to the angry-looking siren in the other tank, though now he looked more wary than mad.

Seungcheol pressed the paper with the letters back up to the tank, then pointed at the oriental siren. The gold one shook his head, looking slightly apologetic.

“Ok, this one can read up to M, the other doesn’t know any,” Seungcheol hummed, and the sound of Jun’s pencil filled the air again.

“That’s so cool,” Mingyu mumbled, sounding awed. He gave the gold siren an experimental wave, and surprisingly, after a few seconds of hesitation, the siren did the same, looking a little confused.

“You think they can talk?” Seungri asked suddenly, startling them all; they’d forgotten he was even in the room. “Seungcheol, you heard their songs, right? Did you understand them?”

Seungcheol shivered at the memory of long hair and beautiful eyes, and the sound of an even more beautiful voice filled his thoughts.

“Ye-yeah, I could understand,” he said carefully, and Seungri nodded, eyes trained on the golden siren. Seungcheol shivered again, and his hand rose involuntarily to touch his cheek where the pretty siren had cupped it.

“Should we tell him our names?” Seokmin suggested, feeling the tension in the air.

“All of our names have letters past M though,” Mingyu pointed out, and Seokmin deflated. Then he perked right back up.

“Still, he can memorize the letters right? He doesn’t necessarily need to know how they sound. Oh, and we can put like, laminated flashcards in the tank so he can spell his name, too!”

“That’s...not a bad idea,” Seungcheol hummed, rubbing a thumb over his lips like he always did when he was thinking. “I’ll go put that on someone’s to-do list.”

“Before we do any of that, we should probably _feed_ them,” Minhyuk interrupted, and all of them looked at each other. Right.

“ _Will_ they eat is the question though. The red one looks too angry to eat,” Seokmin chuckled, glancing at the other tank, where the oriental siren tapped his tail against the glass in a vaguely imposing manner.

“Well, we have to try. We need to keep them alive,” Seungri said dismissively, pushing off from his position of leaning against the wall and peering at Jun’s clipboard. “Try some deep-water fish.”

“...Do y’think they eat anglerfish?” Seokmin asked quietly, though his voice sounded a little amused. Seungcheol shuddered at the mere thought of the demon-like fish.

“I’m not feeding them anglerfish,” he said firmly, shaking his head. “We can start with tuna or something of the like.”

“Their loss,” Seokmin snickered, and Mingyu whacked his shoulder.

* * *

When Seungcheol and Mingyu hoisted the case of various fish, namely tuna and a couple other big species, up to the lid of the gold siren’s tank, they were more than a little anxious, to say the least. Across from them, Jun and Seokmin were at the oriental siren’s tank, looking even more wary. All of them had their earbuds in, and Seungcheol sent them a thumbs up, one they returned.

“Let’s do this,” Mingyu mouthed at him, sending him a reassuring grin, and Seungcheol nodded, taking a deep breath. All he could hear was his own heartbeat, a little faster than usual. When they’d checked, the gold siren was hiding at the bottom of his tank again, but they had no idea how fast sirens could swim, or how viciously that particular siren would attack, if he moved at all.

In his belt, the small gun, loaded with another round of sedatives, almost seemed to tingle. He really hoped he wouldn’t have to use it. He hoped.

When Mingyu nodded, he carefully pressed the button that would raise the lid of the tank, and, working quickly, they tipped the small tank of fish into the water, shutting the lid quickly afterwards. The siren, from what tiny portion of his tail that they could see, didn’t move, which honestly relieved them a little. Mingyu grinned at him again.

They gave Jun and Seokmin a thumbs up and a “go ahead!” gesture, and Jun waved. They were a bit more wary, because unlike the gold siren, the oriental one was out and about, narrowed eyes fixed on the lid of the tank. His tail was waving back and forth, like a cat about to pounce, and it made Seungcheol anxious, to say the least.

When Seokmin lifted the lid, all of them held their breaths. Seungcheol, even though he wasn’t over there, could feel his heart rate pick up, and he felt a tingle of uncomfortable heat zip up his spine. He was waiting for the inevitable moment when the siren would strike, launching himself out of the water or maybe dragging one of them down into it-

But the siren’s advance was slow and purposeful as he rose to the lid of the tank. When his head breached the water, Jun pulled the sedation gun from his belt, but even from that distance Seungcheol could see his hands shaking. If push came to shove, he knew Jun wouldn’t be able to shoot.

But instead of screeching or singing, the siren simply opened his mouth and made a loud, angry clicking noise, audible even through their earbuds. Then he simply turned and dove right back down, violently splashing Jun and Seokmin with water in an almost amusingly petty display. Either way, Seokmin didn’t hesitate to quickly shut the lid.

Seungcheol signalled for them to take our their earbuds, and once he could hear again he laughed.

“Got a little wet there, eh?”

“He _clicked_ at me!” Jun huffed, sounding dramatically affronted. “The _nerve_!” the tension drained away, and all of them started laughing, even when Jun whined for them to shut up and get him some dry clothes.

“Hopefully they’ll eat,” Mingyu mumbled quietly once they were back on the ground, and Seungcheol’s amusement was sobered. He glanced into the tank just to see that the golden siren had not moved, still hiding behind the massive rock in his tank. He seemed kind of sad, a little afraid, and his eyes moved to the other tank, where the oriental siren was shredding apart some seaweed rather angrily.

“...Maybe we should put them into the same tank,” he suggested softly. “They seemed pretty close…”

“Yeah, I noticed he was panicking pretty badly when he saw the red one on the stretcher,” Seokmin pointed out, walking over, hair damp but clothes dry.

“I think we should keep them separate. They’re obviously very different species, and they should be studied separately as well,” rang Seungri’s voice from a level above. All of their heads shot up to look at him, a little startled. Seungri had a habit of just...popping out of nowhere; it was kind of uncanny really.

“Seeing them interact might be more helpful,” Jun countered, tossing a hand at the golden siren. “If they’re social animals, then we should treat them as such. It’s like singling out a wolf from the pack. It might have negative repercussions.”

Seungri shrugged. “Well, at least for now, we should keep them separate, then maybe we can put them into the same tank later. I’m still wary though, I don’t like the idea of them coming up with a plan or something. If they’re that smart, that is.”

Seungcheol bristled. Something about Seungri’s tone put him off.

“Oh c’mon, Hyunnie, relax,” came a familiar voice. Seungri’s partner from the police force- ironically also named Seunghyun- strolled in casually, shooting them a smile.

“...Don’t call me that,” Seungri mumbled dryly. Seunghyun just smirked at him.

“So...sirens! You actually got one. Two, in fact!” He strode up to the tank of the oriental siren, eyes interested as he leaned in.

“Ah, wait, that one’s a little-” Jun didn’t get the whole sentence out before the siren had violently slammed his tail against the glass, sending Seunghyun stumbling back in surprise.

“...Hostile,” Jun finished weakly after he flinched. Seunghyun laughed.

“I can see. This one’ll be interesting to study. What about that tank? Is there one in it?”

“Yeah, he’s just hiding,” Seungcheol hummed, delicately tapping on the glass. The golden siren’s tail fin flicked, but he didn’t move. Seungcheol sighed. “We were trying to get them to eat, but...we’ll have to wait and see.”

“Interesting. Got any notes?” At that, Jun eagerly handed Seunghyun his clipboard, and his eyes widened.

“They can read? That’s cool. I wonder how smart they are.”

“I’m willing to bet they’re as smart as we are,” Jun said excitedly, taking his clipboard back and flipping through pages and pages of notes (Jun was a maniac note-taker). “Of course we can run tests and stuff, but what I’m really hoping for is that they’ll be...cooperative.” His eyes once again slid to the oriental siren, who glared darkly at them all. Seunghyun chuckled a little.

“So’d ya give them names?” His voice was inquisitive, and Jun and Seungcheol exchanged a look.

“Well, I’m guessing they have their own names, so we’ll hold off on anything until we can let them say and/or spell their names,” Jun explained, and Seunghyun nodded. “Still, we should give them classifications. The red and black one kinda looks like a koi, so he can be Cyprinus for now. As for the gold one, I don’t really know any kind of fish with coloring that bright, so…”

“We’ll just call him Goldie then,” Seokmin said brightly, and Seungcheol snorted. Seokmin glared at him.

“I am not calling an intelligent, sentient creature ‘Goldie’,” Mingyu huffed, folding his arms. Seungcheol and Jun nodded and Seokmin pouted at them, looking mildly offended.

“Well do you have any better ideas?” he shot back, and Mingyu hummed, thinking for a second.

“Well, the way the light reflects off of his scales makes him super shiny, kinda like the sun, so how about Sol?” he suggested thoughtfully. There was a murmur of agreement, par a slightly embarrassed-looking Seokmin.

“Alright, Sol and Cyprinus,” Seungcheol said primly, clapping his hands. “We’ll get classification cards soon. For now, let’s just focus on studying them, alright?” There was another chorus of agreement and Seungcheol grinned.

His smile fell slightly when he looked back into the tank of the newly-christened Sol, who still had not moved an inch from his hiding place by the wall. A glance over at the other tank told him that Cyprinus was likely hiding too.

Their food was left untouched.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Sleep? Who’s she? I only know the all-encompassing void," is a phat mood can you tell I love Jun?


	5. J.W

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seungkwan finds his mysterious author

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> GUESS WHO ALMOST FORGOT TO FUCKIN UPLOAD  
> Ok all joking aside thank you all so, so much for your support on Good Things i love yall ;-;

“J.W.” How those letters taunted him with tiny, delicious bits of info. Who was J.W? Were they still alive? How did they seem to know so much about sirens? Seungkwan wanted to find out everything. Suddenly, he was very, very curious about those angel-voiced creatures; he wanted to know if they were real or not. A couple sleepless nights of internet-surfing helped fuel his weird desperation, and combined with his studies, he didn’t get a lot of rest. 

His parents noticed. Often, his mother would send him curious, slightly concerned looks at breakfast, but he always dashed off before she could corner him. Between classes, he would scour the internet for hints of the mysterious J.W’s identity before having to learn about boring things again like history and etiquette. It was a tortuous cycle, really.

But something always drove him to keep going. Something he couldn’t place. Perhaps it was his love of the water, perhaps it was his simple case of incurable curiosity. Either way, he kept searching. When he wasn’t in classes, he was online, still eager to find a clue.

And when he wasn’t looking for J.W, and he wasn’t learning about boring things, he was down at the beach as always. Lately he had taken to peering out at the horizon, not sure what he was looking for but not wanting to stop. He always thought he would see something.

Sometimes Nayeon was with him, sometimes it was Tzuyu, sometimes it was another amiable boy named Daniel who was freakishly good at skipping rocks. Either way, Seungkwan always talked about what he was trying to look for, but he never really had a reason why. His passion for his new interest was sudden and rather unfueled. Usually they humored him for a while before confessing they didn’t know anything about a “J.W” or sirens in the SVT labs.

Seungkwan didn’t give up. In fact, he was so caught up in trying to find some answers that he finally went to his father, whom he 1) didn’t talk to much, and 2) was 99% sure would only give him a strange look. Still, he was at his wit’s end. He had to try. His mother would question him for days, and he didn’t even have answers, so he was going to the next best thing. 

So, somewhat hesitantly, he knocked on the door to his father’s office, walking in after. His dad, the king, was sitting at his desk, nursing a cup of what was probably his fifth cup of coffee that hour between his hands and looking vacant. He did, however, perk up when Seungkwan entered.

“Oh, Seungkwan, hello. What can I do for you? Study troubles?”

Seungkwan shuffled awkwardly. “Sort of? I- I’m wondering if you know anything about the initials ‘J.W’... I just read some of their work online and it’s pretty interesting but I can’t find them anywhere.” His father blinked at him.

“Did you check the library?” he asked slowly, and Seungkwan suddenly felt very stupid. Right, they had a library; he’d completely forgotten that there were actual books in there, with actual authors. He only used the library for the tunnel.

“Uh...no,” he said, somewhat awkwardly. His father simply waved a hand, looking dryly amused, and Seungkwan took the hint to shoo. He quickly ran over to the library, and after poking his head inside and habitually checking to see if anyone was there (it was empty, as predicted), he shut the doors behind him, feeling oddly secretive. Whatever he found out, if he found anything at all, he wanted to keep it to himself for a little bit first. 

He darted through the shelves, running a finger along the spines as he went, looking for two very specific initials. He mumbled them to himself under his breath as he went, squinting through the somewhat dim light. 

Then he paused. Right at the end of the bottom shelf, in peeling gold print, were the letters. J.W. Right in front of his face, he finally had an answer. With shaking hands he pulled it out of the shelf and set it into his lap, staring down at the cover.

“Compendium of The Fae: A Study in Otherworldly Creatures,” he read aloud to himself, his voice a faint whisper. So this mysterious J.W talked about other creatures too, not just sirens. He glanced back at the shelf; there were only two other books by J.W, one about elves and one about faeries. No siren book though. 

Seungkwan felt oddly disappointed, but he couldn’t place why. Sirens, faeries, elves- those didn’t exist, right? So why did it feel so strange? A peek at the book in his lap told him that this J.W clearly knew what they were talking about. His words were so scientific that for a second Seungkwan had no problem believing in the text. Just for a second though.

Then he promptly shut the book and slid it back into the shelf. Very suddenly, his adrenalin spiked, and he wanted to get up and go find whoever this J.W person was. On second thought, he grabbed the book back and slid it under his arm, looking around suspiciously again even though technically all he had done was pick out a book. 

Now to go out on the town and look around, ask for answers. Ask, and ye shall receive, he told himself, smiling up at the late-summer sunshine. Hurrying down into the more crowded part of town, he looked around for anything that might possibly give him answers.

He took the opportunity to look around, observe the little town. It was small, barely big enough to be considered a city in all honesty. Despite being far advanced in marine tech, the town itself was comfortably old-fashioned and quaint, cozy in a way. He especially liked a tiny little cafe wedged in between a pasta restaurant and jewellery store, where the owner’s cat sometimes came out to wind around his legs and purr at him.

Maybe he could find answers there. The cafe owner was old; maybe he could help him. He veered off to the right, went down a couple side streets, took a shortcut through a watch store, and ended up in front of the cafe, which, thankfully, was open. Pushing open the door, he hummed a quiet hello, looking around for the nice old man who ran the shop.

“Seungkwan? Is that you?” Seungkwan smiled brightly at the familiar voice, and he turned to find the cafe owner, Chaesung, standing by the register. “The usual?”

“Not today, I’m afraid,” Seungkwan sighed, quickly making his way over. Deciding to be to the point, he set the book on the counter. “Do you know any author with the initials ‘J.W’?” Chaesung blinked at the book, squinting his eyes a little.

“Well, I don’t know anyone personally, but try the book store up on the other side of town,” he suggested, and Seungkwan had nodded and grabbed the book before he even finished speaking. After yelling a quick thank you, Seungkwan practically sprinted down the old roads, which were well-maintained despite the old-fashioned style of the town.

He knew that book store, but he had only been there once, and the memory of it was hazy. Well, all the more reason to go check it out, he thought.

When he got to the little shop, he was panting and a bit disoriented from having sprinted uphill for a bit, but he was excited. The book store was somewhat isolated from it’s fellow shops, almost right up against the cliffs that encircled their town. Still, it was picturesque and pleasant to look at, so Seungkwan found no quarrel with it.

When he got up to the door, for a second he worried that it was closed. Through the door, he could only see a small light on in the corner of the shop, and there wasn’t any movement.

He supposed he might as well check. He knocked once or twice, but no one answered, and his lips twitched down into a frown. He tested the doorknob, surprised to feel it unlocked, and with careful steps, he decided to walk inside. _It’s just a book shop, no reason to be afraid of going inside,_ he told himself, even though his heart rate was beginning to pick up.

The inside was warm, comfortably so, and a little dusty. The floor creaked under his feet and the whole shop was dominated by old shelves that groaned under the weight of the books shoved onto them, and the light from the lamp in the corner cast everything into a dim glow. It seemed a little unreal, like something right out of an old renaissance painting. It felt...magical, like there were secrets lurking under the floorboards and between the pages of books

“...Hello?” he called softly. “Is anyone there?” He jumped violently when he heard a noise come from the shadows, but a split second later he realized it was a snore. There was someone in there, but they were asleep.

Seungkwan blinked. Had he accidentally intruded onto someone’s nap time? He moved a little closer, wary and hesitant, and squinted into the shadows. Someone was slumped in a chair behind the tiny counter, obviously asleep, but it was too dark to make out their features. Seungkwan leaned a little closer, trying to see who they were, but-

“I am here,” came a new voice, and Seungkwan almost screamed. He jumped violently, whirling around to try and see who had spoken. Clutching his heart, he took deep breaths, willing himself not to shriek and/or bolt from his spot.

“Sorry if I scared you. I’ve been told I walk quietly, even on these creaky floorboards.” Another light appeared from the back of the room, and instinctively Seungkwan’s eyes went to follow. The source of the light was a candle, he realized soon enough, but the light was too dim to see who was holding it.

He jumped again when more candles around him suddenly burst into flame, seemingly without a starter.

“H-how-?” He couldn’t even get the question out, much too startled. The new voice laughed.

“Magic,” they said jokingly, but there was a hint of something else in their voice that he couldn’t decipher. Luckily, at least the light of the many candles was strong enough to finally show the face of his mysterious companion, who stepped closer to him.

Strangely enough, it was a man around his age, with cat-like eyes, a soft face, and a knowing smile. He dressed simply, though his t-shirt and jeans seemed a little at odds with the old-fashioned, magical-feeling book store.

“Sorry if I scared you,” the man said again, stepping around shelves to get to him. “And sorry about the lighting. I blew out all the candles because Wonwoo fell asleep. Poor guy doesn’t get enough sleep at all.” He gestured to the other man sleeping behind the counter, and Seungkwan chuckled weakly. 

“Anyway, anything I can help you with? No one really comes up here anymore, so I figure you’re either desperate for something new to read or you like exploring. Maybe a combination of both.” His voice was strangely knowing, and Seungkwan noted the odd gleam of his eyes, flickering with a weird light. He put it out of his mind.

“Oh uh, yeah, uh…” He fumbled with the book still under his arm for a second, holding it out so the cat-eyed man could take it. “I’m looking for the author, ‘J.W’. Do you know who they are?”

Surprisingly, the other man’s expression turned somewhat thoughtful. He hefted the book in his hands for a second, then nodded, handing it back. Without explanation, he walked over to the man who was apparently named Wonwoo, shaking his shoulder gently with another one of those weird, knowing looks. Seungkwan watched uneasily, wondering what was going to happen.

After a bit of shaking on the cat-eyed man’s part, Wonwoo finally woke up with a jolt, looking around wildly. After he yawned, the cat-eyed man whispered something into his ear, and his own eyes widened.

“You- you’re looking for J.W?” Wonwoo asked, directing the question at Seungkwan as he stood up and grabbed a pair of round, thin-framed glasses. He was surprisingly young and had a fox-like face, all sharp eyes and pale skin. He was tall, taller than himself, Seungkwan noted, and very lanky like he didn't eat well.

“Yeah, I am,” he nodded, a bit more confident. Wonwoo and the cat-eyed man exchanged a glance that Seungkwan couldn’t read, then Wonwoo turned to him, adjusting his glasses and old gray hoodie.

“Well uh...that’s uh, that’s me. I’m J.W. Jeon Wonwoo, at your service, your highness.” He held out a hand somewhat awkwardly, but Seungkwan was far too stunned to take it. His mouth had even dropped open. He couldn’t believe it. After hours of searching, he was suddenly standing before the mysterious J.W, in all his skinny, underfed glory. Seungkwan didn’t know whether to laugh or be awed.

“How do you know who I am?” he asked instead, a little breathless. Wonwoo blinked at him, lowering his hand.

“You’re the prince; everyone knows what you look like. I’m not _that_ out of the loop, I just don’t go into town a lot…”

“Explains why I’ve never seen you before, then,” Seungkwan hummed, looking down at the book. Wonwoo’s eyes followed the motion.

“Oh, that book. Yeah, I wrote that. Took me ages; fae are notoriously flighty with info. The elves were so much easier to talk to,” he muttered matter-of-factly, gently taking the book from Seungkwan’s limp hands and flicking through it. Again, Seungkwan stared at him in awe. He talked like he had met and conversed with those kinds of creatures before.

“But elves don’t exist,” he blurted out. Wonwoo just laughed.

“Oh, all sorts of things exist if you know where to look for them” he hummed serenely, handing the book back to Seungkwan. “‘Course, you don’t have to take my word for it. I’m just a drop-out college student mooching off of my old buddy.” He sent the cat-eyed man a smirk, and he smirked back. Seungkwan stared for a second again, then shook his head.

“A-anyway, I wanted to ask about the sirens. If you know anything about sirens, can you tell me?”

“Why the sudden interest?” It wasn’t Wonwoo who spoke that time, but the other man. There was amusement in his tone, and Seungkwan almost felt a little intimidated. He refused to let it show though. 

“I- I read what you wrote online,” he said carefully. He honestly wasn’t sure where his own interest had come from either. “And I really like the ocean. I guess I got curious. I promise I won’t tell anyone if you don’t want me to, I just- I’m curious, ok? Sue me…” He trailed off, starting to feel slightly embarrassed. He looked away, and because of that, he didn’t notice the look Wonwoo and the cat-eyed man exchanged. But eventually, the cat-eyed man spoke, and his expression was less soft, more serious.

“You are bound to secrecy the moment you leave this place. No word we speak here will be spoken anywhere else,” he said firmly. His words were not a question, and the air almost seemed to grow heavier, thicker like they were underwater. Seungkwan nodded anyway, and he felt something in his chest tighten imperceptibly. That was odd.

“Yeah, ok, I promise,” he said obediently, and the cat-eyed man smiled.

“Good. I’m Joshua, by the way,” he added, and Seungkwan nodded again.

“Right. Joshua and Wonwoo. I’m Seungkwan. Not...that you don’t know that already…” More embarrassed than ever, he shuffled awkwardly from foot to foot, and Wonwoo chuckled, plopping himself back into the chair behind the counter.

“Alright, ask away. I’ve never had anyone to share with besides Joshua, so I’m eager to talk.” The invitation was there, Seungkwan could practically taste it, but he held himself back for a moment, wondering where to start.

“Did you hear the news about the lab?” he finally decided to ask first. Seemed like a safer question than just _“hey do sirens exist?”_

Wonwoo nodded. “Yeah, I’ve heard. Seems pretty wild. I must say, I’m very surprised. Sirens are very intelligent creatures; they’re just as smart as us and usually smarter, honestly. If the stories are true, I wonder what they did to capture a living siren.”

Seungkwan noticed that Joshua tensed. Just a tiny movement of him stiffening, nearly imperceptible. His hands twitched, and Seungkwan frowned inwardly, curious at his reaction. He didn’t question it, but he noted it down in the back of his mind. 

“So...so do sirens really do exist? Are they real?” he asked hesitantly, and Wonwoo smiled a little.

“Oh, anything’s real if you look hard enough,” he said cryptically.

Seungkwan didn’t know what to make of that, so he just nodded a couple times, still a little stunned. Half of him didn’t believe Wonwoo, but the other half of him did. Or at least, it wanted to. 

“Again, you don’t have to take my word for it. For all you know I could just be a crazy man in an empty book shop,” Wonwoo chuckled, and Seungkwan squinted at him.

“...Do you want me to believe you or not?” he huffed, and it was Joshua’s turn to tilt his head to the side and smile knowingly.

“Whether you believe us or not is up to you,” he hummed lightly, running a finger along a nearby bookshelf and picking up the dust.

“Can you show me proof?” Seungkwan countered, feeling oddly bold.

“Again, the question is whether you would believe it or not,” Wonwoo shot right back. “What do _you_ know about sirens?”

The question threw Seungkwan a little. What _did_ he know?

“...Just stories and the stuff you posted online,” he admitted sheepishly, and the other two exchanged another look. It was starting to get annoying, all their little glances at each other. 

“...I see,” Wonwoo finally mumbled, tugging at the strings of his hoodie. “Well uh...I can’t exactly prove it, not right now anyway, but I can tell you the stuff I didn’t post,” he offered, and he sounded more like an actual person, just a regular old slightly socially-awkward college drop-out, rather than a cryptic young man with sharp eyes and strange words.

Seungkwan nodded. He wanted to know everything he could. “That’d be fine, but can I come back tomorrow? My parents are going to get mad if I stay out any later…” A glance out the window told him it was going to get dark soon, and if he didn’t hurry home, the only thing that would greet him was another lecture and maybe some exasperated sighs. Actually, guaranteed exasperated sighs. 

“Yes, feel free,” Joshua nodded, “but remember: you are not to breathe a word of this to anyone else. You cannot bring anyone with you either.” Again, his words were not a suggestion, and Seungkwan’s chest felt tight again. Still, he nodded, not about to argue if it meant he could get answers.

“Run along now, your highness, lest you anger the royals,” Wonwoo joked, leaning back in his chair. Seungkwan laughed; it was good to see someone who didn’t rush to kiss the feet of his parents like simpering slaves. It was refreshing.

After he bade them a goodbye, he stepped out of the little shop, smiling at the warm sea breeze blowing in. Sunset was fast approaching; he didn’t realize he’d stayed there for so long. 

He shook his head, hurrying back down the incline to the town. He didn’t want to get another one of his mother’s famous, two hour-long lectures.


	6. Reunite

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hansol finally gets to be reunited with Minghao.

The next day (or what Hansol assumed to be the next day; it was hard to tell what time it was in the big room. The numbers on the wall held little meaning for him), Hansol performed the same little routine of peeking out from behind his boulder, checking for any Land-Walkers, and then going back to hiding again whether they were there or not.

He didn’t feel right. The separation was wearing on him. He’d never really been alone before; Jeonghan and Jihoon had found him when they were all young, while he was wandering the currents looking for a place to call home. From there, he’d always been in Jihoon or Jeonghan’s company, never too far from their tail fins. 

And now, very suddenly, he was alone. He could see Minghao, could communicate with him on a basic level, but they couldn’t actually interact. It made a sick feeling rise in his gut, and he didn’t want to eat. There were plenty of tasty-looking fish above and around him, he knew, but distrust and that sick feeling made his appetite wane. 

He knew the Land-Walkers had noticed. The doe-eyed one was there the most, looking worriedly into his tank, then over at Minghao’s, then back again. Sometimes there was a very handsome, very tall Land-Walker, who accompanied the pretty one and the sharp-nosed one a lot. The scary one with the L-shaped thing sometimes stood there, but unlike the doe-eyed Land-Walker, his presence was scary and off-putting, a little threatening. He never stayed for long, and for that, Hansol was grateful. 

He just wished he could at least be a little closer to Minghao. Or Jeonghan. He wanted Jeonghan, or Chan, or Soonyoung. Even Jihoon’s grumpy presence would be a welcome change. He didn’t like being alone. 

Sometimes the doe-eyed Land-Walker tried to talk to him with the white sheet. Hansol ignored him most of the time, but sometimes he glanced over, before he berated himself and forced his eyes away. He would just sit there and stay still until the Land-Walker sighed and gave up. He didn’t know why he felt so disappointed when that happened, but he did. 

For three whole days (maybe longer, maybe shorter; Hansol couldn’t tell and he didn’t really care anymore), he just sat there, not moving. The fish around him nestled in his hair, totally unafraid, and he didn’t try to catch them. The tuna they’d dumped in the second day were still racing around the top of the tank, unused to such confines.

He only moved when no one else was around, when the lights got turned off and he could talk to Minghao. When he was 100% sure no one was there, he would slowly get up and swim over to the side of his tank, and tap an “I’m here” against the glass, waiting for the inevitable “I’m glad you’re ok” that Minghao would tap back. 

Minghao told him to stay strong, Hansol told him the same. They could see each other clearly through the dark, and Minghao’s expression remained resolute. He looked more tired than before though, as though stretched thin.

Hansol always made sure to tell him to stay strong. Every night, that was the one common phrase. Just the two words, repeated over and over. What else could they tell each other?

Those were the times that Hansol began looking forward to. By the fifth night, he would sit still all day, ignoring the Land-Walker’s repeated attempts to get him to interact with them, then practically bolt to talk to Minghao, almost to reassure himself that the older siren was still there. He didn’t reply right away one night, and he’d panicked until Minghao had rather apologetically explained that he’d been asleep.

They got so caught up in talking to each other that they forgot to check if anyone else was still in the room. That was why they missed the pretty Land-Walker watching them on the fifth night, hiding in the shadows, clipboard in hand. 

On the sixth day, Hansol was starting to really feel the repercussions of not eating. He didn’t want to move, and though he slept ok he found it harder and harder to move. His stomach hurt and his tail muscles were cramped from being scrunched up all the time but he didn’t change his routine. He barely had the energy to rouse himself when the doe-eyed Land-Walker appeared on schedule.

What made him pause was the Land-Walker’s expression, oddly determined. Curiosity piqued, Hansol watched him tiredly, but he made no attempt to communicate that day, which was a little odd. 

Then the scary Land-Walker came in, and they argued for a while about something. They kept gesturing at Hansol, who watched somewhat distantly. Finally, the scary Land-Walker threw up his hands and nodded, which made the doe-eyed one look very smug and a little relieved.

Hansol grew even more curious when the doe-eyed Land-Walker sent him a thumbs up and a wink. He just blinked back absently, wondering what he was trying to say. 

He ignored it for the rest of the day. It probably didn’t matter, right?

What he did take note of was the way the pretty Land-Walker climbed up to the top of his tank, opened it a crack, and didn't come back down. He didn’t bother going up to inspect it, but he glanced up from time to time. He just wanted to be back in the ocean with his friends- his family. 

When night fell, it took a little more effort than normal to sit up and swim over to the other side of the tank. He tapped his regular “I’m here” onto the glass and waited for a response, swishing his tail anxiously as a pair of anchovies circled around his head.

He never got a response. Not because Minghao didn’t answer, but because something sharp hit the middle of his back, and he was out like a light before he could hear anything else, drifting easily into a deep sleep.

* * *

When he woke up, he knew instantly that something was different. The water itself felt different, but mostly, someone was holding him. Wait. Someone was holding him. Could it be-?

He forced his heavy eyelids open, blinking groggily, and a hushed gasp left the figure holding him. Hansol would recognize that voice anywhere.

“Mnngha…?” is what he ended up saying, too drowsy to properly say his name. Minghao laughed brightly, and the sound filled Hansol with relief even in his muddled state. Distantly he registered that he was laying with his head on the upper part of Minghao’s tail.

“Yep. It’s me, Sol. They put you into my tank,” he explained happily, sounding a little emotional. Or at least, as emotional as Xu Minghao was willing to get. Which wasn’t much. 

“You just rest for now, ok? You haven’t been eating, have you? I could cut myself on your collarbones,” he chastised, poking Hansol’s clavicle to prove his point. Hansol simply hummed and closed his eyes, happy to obey Minghao’s words and fall asleep again. 

The last thing he heard was Minghao humming a soft lullaby, one that Jeonghan had taught both of them when they were still young. His voice wasn’t the same as Jeonghan’s breathy, rich voice, but it was nice all the same, and Hansol fell asleep with little effort. 

He woke up again later, feeling much more energized. He could sit up easily, and though there was still the burning pain of hunger in his stomach, it was bearable because he was finally with Minghao again.

The second he sat up, he turned to look at the older siren and hugged him tightly, grinning a grin that showed off his sharp teeth. Minghao hugged him back just as tight, and they dissolved into slightly hysterical, mostly relieved laughter. They ignored the looks from the Land-Walkers watching them.

“How’d I get in here?” Hansol finally asked once he’d pulled away. Minghao shrugged.

“The one who looks like he could be from my part of the ocean knocked you out ‘n dragged you over here. He kept smiling at me and it was kinda weird but I didn’t splash him.” He waved a dismissive hand at the pretty Land-Walker, who waved back with a smile, and Hansol was brave enough to wiggle his fingers as well. The pretty Land-Walker’s smile brightened.

However, Minghao’s smile fell once he turned back. Hansol winced at the aggressive poke in the ribs the older siren gave him, and he whined, shuffling back.

“You haven’t eaten for days, Hansol, I can tell. I know you don’t trust them, and I don’t either, but I’d really like to get us out of here without you starving yourself. So you’re going to sit here and I’m going to show you that as sketchy as it is, these tuna are really good.”

Promptly, he patted Hansol’s shoulder and looked up at the one tuna left in his tank, big enough to feed both of them, with predatory eyes, his pupils flattening to slits. Hansol recognized that gleam; Jihoon got the same way when he smelled blood in the water.

Within minutes, Minghao had made quick work of biting the tuna right behind the eyes, effectively killing it for them to eat. He dragged it back down to Hansol by the tail, which made the younger laugh a little.

“I was skeptical too at first,” Minghao shrugged, tearing off a large chunk and offering it to him, “then I figured that if I wanna get out of this place I might as well keep my strength up.”

“...Makes sense,” Hansol mumbled, taking a bite and feeling a little relieved when he tasted nothing strange. It was then that he realised just how hungry he really was, and when he was done with his chunk, he shot the rest of the tuna a glance. Minghao just laughed and shoved it at him, and he dug in fast enough to give himself a slight stomach ache before Minghao slapped his shoulder and told him to slow down.

Hansol felt a lot better once he’d eaten, and he let himself relax a little more. Even if they had less space to swim around, at least he wasn’t alone. That was the big part. If he wasn’t alone then he was fine. 

They both looked over at the Land-Walkers when they registered loud noises that sounded like cheering. They were giving each other high-fives and grinning brightly, yelling excitedly about something that was too muffled by the glass for Hansol to make out.

“...Land-Walkers are weird,” Minghao finally mumbled, giving them a judgemental look that he’d perfected over the years by using it over and over on Soonyoung, who remained cheery despite Minghao’s unimpressed eyes.

“Well, at least some of them seem nice,” Hansol reasoned, not sure why he was trying to defend them. Minghao shrugged anyway, looking noncommittal. 

Deciding that trying to convince Minghao of their niceness would be a fruitless endeavor, Hansol turned to look at the Land-Walkers. The pretty one was staring right back, smiling brightly, and the tall one and the sharp-nosed one were practically dancing around. The doe-eyed one was giving him a softer smile, looking a little proud of himself. The scary one was nowhere to be seen, and there were a couple new faces, but Hansol didn’t really care about them.

“...What do you think they’re gonna do to us?” he asked hesitantly, his elation fading into apprehensiveness. Minghao’s smile fell too.

“I don’t know, Sol, I wish I did. If they try anything, I’m going to drown them. We aren’t animals to be studied,” he spat rather venomously, and Hansol sighed, fiddling with a bone from the tuna. 

“...I wish we could go home,” he mumbled, and Minghao sighed, patting his shoulder. 

“We’ll get home soon. Maybe they’ll let us go if we just ignore them. They get annoyed when we ignore them, right?” He shot another glance over at the Land-Walkers, mouth twitching into a displeased frown. 

“Well, maybe if we cooperate they’ll let us go,” Hansol reasoned, and Minghao frowned deeper.

“I don’t even want to look at them. But whatever gets us out of here faster, I guess…”

“...Why don’t we just talk to them? I can speak their language and you kind of can, right? We can just tell them that we need to go back,” Hansol said suddenly, brightening up. If he could talk to them, surely they would listen, right?

But Minghao shook his head.

“That’s way too dangerous, Sol, no way! They’re _Land-Walkers_ , you think they’re just going to listen to us? They captured us, and- and they shot you with that weird thing that made you sleep and I don’t want to risk either of us getting hurt,” he said firmly. “Plus, they always wear things on their ears when they open our tanks, so if push comes to shove I can’t sing or anything.”

Hansol deflated in an almost comical way. Minghao patted his shoulder again. 

“Well we can try, can’t we?” he asked hopefully, shooting a glance at the doe-eyed Land-Walker, who was watching them curiously. Minghao glared at the Land-Walker. 

“I don’t wanna risk it. We shouldn’t interact with them for now, not until we know what they’re gonna do to us,” he huffed, and Hansol nodded with a hum. They sat there in silence for a little while, Hansol still fiddling with the tuna bone. They watched the Land-Walkers and the Land-Walkers watched them back.

Then the sharp-nosed Land-Walker grabbed another one of those white sheets and scribbled something down, pressing it to the glass. Hansol glanced at Minghao, half for permission, half out of curiosity, but the older siren shook his head, so Hansol stayed put, tearing his eyes away from the Land-Walker’s hopeful expression.

Still, eventually his gaze strayed back, and he found the Land-Walker had thickened the letters to make them easier to read.

“...It just says hi,” he said carefully, looking at Minghao again. Minghao scoffed.

“What, do they think they can get what they want by being friendly at first? Well it’s not gonna work. I don’t trust them.” He rolled his eyes, grabbing Hansol’s hand and swimming over to the thick seaweed on the far end of the tank. It didn’t have a boulder like Hansol’s old tank, but the seaweed was a good enough cover.

“We can’t trust them, Sol,” Minghao clicked insistently, looking stern. “I know for a fact that you trust people a little bit too easily. Remember, these are Land-Walkers and no matter what they say, they’re dangerous.” His voice was almost pleading, and Hansol’s resolve faltered.

“...Alright, I won’t talk to them,” he sighed, and Minghao nodded.

“Good. I know you think everything can be resolved peacefully but that’s not always what works,” Minghao mumbled, looking at the sand underneath them, and Hansol felt a small ping of guilt poke at his chest. Right, Minghao didn’t have the best childhood, did he? Hesitantly, he reached out to pat the top of Minghao’s head. Minghao just sighed.

“At least we have each other,” Hansol said weakly, and Minghao shot him an equally weak smile.

“Yeah. That’s good.” Perhaps involuntarily, his eyes traveled back to the Land-Walkers still standing outside their tank, and his weak smile turned into something vaguely annoyed and expectant.

“The pretty one keeps staring at me,” he muttered, and Hansol snorted.

“Maybe he likes you~” he teased, and he received a flick to the forehead for that.

“He doesn’t even have a tail, Sol, he just has those spindly legs,” Minghao huffed, giving the pretty Land-Walker a judgemental look. 

“Not as spindly as the tall one,” Hansol countered, gesturing to said Land-Walker. “Look at those things. They look like sea urchin spines. I could snap them in half.” That, thankfully made Minghao laugh, which was a welcome sight and sound in their rather dreary situation.

For a while, they just poked some fun at the Land-Walkers, having a great time comparing them to certain unpleasant fish and noting that Jeonghan could easily either kill or seduce all the men in the room without even singing (he’s too pretty, Minghao joked). Over all, the mood lightened a little, and even though they were very aware of the heavy eyes on them, they could ignore it easily enough. 

However, that night, the Land-Walkers didn’t leave right away. In fact, most of them stayed, bustling between little boxes that flashed and blinked and hurt to look at. Thankfully though, they dimmed the lights, which was a bit of a relief on their eyes. 

“...Do you think we’ll be ok?” Hansol asked softly as they got comfortable in the seaweed, lying on their stomachs. Minghao said nothing for a moment or two. 

“I wish I could say for sure, Sol, I really do,” Minghao finally mumbled with a slow sigh that disturbed the seaweed on either side of his neck, close to his gills. “But I’ll do whatever it takes to keep you safe. Jeonghan would scale me otherwise,” he chuckled dryly, and Hansol smiled a little. 

“Yea, he would, wouldn’t he?” he murmured softly, laying his cheek on his arm. Minghao hummed quietly in response, flipping onto his back and lacing his hands over his chest. They both sighed again, lapsing into silence because what else was there to say?

Hansol closed his eyes, but sleep didn’t come immediately. Instead, there was a lingering sort of apprehension, pressing on his chest though he was weightless in the water.

It took him a long time to finally drift off to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ack im sad no one seems to be reading or commenting much on this story ;-; bUT THATS OK ill keep uploading it


	7. My Name Is

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seungcheol and co. learn some names (and get insulted)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> H?

It had been a full week and a half since they caught the two sirens, and research was progressing smoothly. The two sirens seemed infinitely happier in each other’s presence, and Seungcheol had even seen the temporarily-named Cyprinus smiling. In turn, it made him happy and certainly a little relieved; Sol was eating again, which was very good for them. 

“I _knew_ they had to be social animals!” Jun yelled triumphantly when they’d first seen Sol and Cyprinus interacting happily. Seungri just sighed a little while Seokmin and Mingyu danced around. 

“Do you think they’re like, bros or are they like, together?” Minhyuk asked jokingly, and that sent Jun off into a whole different branch of studying, which was incredibly amusing to watch. For a while, they humored him, wondering if they were in fact a mated pair, but apart from hugging very occasionally, they didn’t seem that affectionate with each other apart from flicking Sol on Cyprinus’ part, which made Mingyu laugh.

But they were still rather uncooperative. They wouldn’t do much when Seokmin or Jun tried to interact with them; they would just sit and watch, a look of haughty disdain on Cyprinus’ face and a wary one on Sol’s. Because of that, it was hard to get a good gauge of their intelligence, though their reactions to things and the way they talked to each other was very human. Cyprinus tended to gesticulate a lot, talking with his hands, and Sol sometimes waved back and when they waved to him. 

Still, it was something. They didn’t dare try and talk to them directly, lest they end up dead in the water, but their progress was, well, progressing. It was more than nothing. They had already succeeded in recording some of the clicking that was apparently their way of talking; Jun had been dying to get it decoded, but he had no idea how to (“Alan Turing wouldn’t even have been able to do this!” he wailed into his hands late at night when Seungcheol had to drag him home to sleep), so he was left with a tempting enigma and no answers. 

The next order of business was something that Seokmin had already taken care of. He was shuffling a stack of laminated cards, each with a letter on them. 

“Remember, he doesn’t know any letters past M,” Seungcheol reminded, raising an eyebrow as he stepped onto the walkway surrounding the top of the tank. Seokmin shrugged next to him.

“I mean, he might know how to spell his name anyway. Like, I memorized my name in sign language once and I didn’t even know what I was doing.”

“...”

“...Don’t look at me like that. I feel judged.”

“Good, you should feel judged. Anyway, put your earbuds in and I’ll lift the lid,” Seungcheol chuckled, and as soon as his hearing was blocked out, he gave Seokmin a thumbs up, one that was returned. 

Through the clear part of the lid, he saw something that made him pause. Sol was slowly coming closer, eyes fixed on him, pelvic fins fluttering. Cyprinus was sitting at the bottom of the tank, glaring at them through his cover of seaweed. Seungcheol shared a glance with Seokmin, who waved a hand as if to tell him “it’ll be fine!” He gave the other man a huffy look, but Seokmin just rolled his eyes. 

Not necessarily reassured, Seungcheol pushed the button that would slowly lift open the lid of the tank, holding his breath. Beside him, he could sense Seokmin doing the same. The sedation gun was there in his belt as it always was, but he _really_ hoped he wouldn’t have to use it. 

Sol’s head poked out of the water very slowly, and he held up his hands in a deliberate matter, palms facing them in an oddly peaceful gesture. Seungcheol noted the tips of his nails, longer and pointier than any human’s. It set him on edge.

What set him on edge more was when the siren gestured to his ears, miming taking something out. Seungcheol, just on instinct and natural politeness, felt his hands twitch to move, but he stopped himself before he could follow through with the motion. He wouldn’t fall for that trick. He shook his head, almost apologetic, and the sad look that Sol gave him was enough to make him feel a little guilty: pushing out his lips and giving him a puppy-eyed pout that reminded him too much of Mingyu for him to be comfortable. 

He blinked when Sol ducked his head back under the water, saying something to Cyprinus that the other siren only waved a dismissive hand at. Sol turned back to them, sinking into the water up to his nose and watching them curiously, apparently giving up on getting them to take out their earbuds. 

Seungcheol wondered what his motives were. Was he going to talk to them? Sing? Scream? He didn’t know and he half didn’t want to find out. If it was something malicious, he didn’t want to end up as fish food.

But the other half of him was curious, in a suspicious kind of way. 

He shook the thought out of his mind when Seokmin very hesitantly kneeled on the metal walkway, holding out the cards. He said something that Seungcheol couldn’t lip read, probably something along the lines of “I don’t know if you can understand me or not but you can use these to talk to us if you want.”

Seungcheol held his breath as Sol’s sharp-nailed hand slowly rose out of the water and waited, palm up, under Seokmin’s hand. He watched as Seokmin carefully dropped the cards into Sol’s hand. The siren took them and shuffled through them for a moment before looking up and...smiling at them. Not a big smile, just a little upward tilt of lips, but a smile nonetheless. Then with a dip of his head he dove back under, showing the cards to Cyprinus. 

Seungcheol closed the lid quickly, and the moment he saw Seokmin take out his earbuds he started talking, mind going a mile a minute while his mouth tried to keep up.

“Did Jun get that? Did you see that? He clearly wanted something from us, and that was-”

“That was actually really cool,” Seokmin interrupted, looking just as elated as he felt, and Seungcheol nodded, peeking through the glass again to where Sol was looking through the cards. He noticed that certain cards were being picked out and set aside, and he wondered what they were for. 

“Yes, I got that!” Jun shouted from the floor, and ran up to them, grinning widely enough to show his teeth as they got down. He was practically jumping up and down, eyes big and sparkly. Seungcheol laughed, patting the tall man’s back and exchanging an amused look with Mingyu across the room.

“Hey- hey, guys, look-” Suddenly Seokmin was in front of the sirens’ tank, nose practically pressed to the glass. All of them hurried over, peering into the tank to watch Sol set the cards out in front of him carefully. Seungcheol stared as the siren peered at each of the cards individually, then placed them out so that they could read them. The other siren watched him as well, his eyes more curious than hostile for once. 

Then done, Sol swam a little bit back, looking at them with wary eyes, a little hopeful.

“...HANSOL,” Seungcheol read aloud, rather amazed. “Is that- is that his name? Hansol?” He looked up, and indeed, the siren pointed to the name, then at himself. Seungcheol’s face split into a wide smile.

“Well you were pretty damn close, Gyu!” he said happily, looking at the tall man, who looked both smug and awed. 

“Hansol, Hansol, that’s an interesting name,” Jun was mumbling to himself, probably writing it down. “Well now I don’t have to feel bad about calling them something they won’t respond to. I wonder about the other one.” 

Seungcheol, apparently the designated communicator some reason, got shoved forward. He simply pointed at the other siren, and Hansol blinked, grabbing the rest of the cards and looking through them. He seemed to struggle for a while on the second name, leaving spaces between cards when he finally laid them out.

“M, I, space, G, H, A, O,” Jun hummed. “...Minghao? Minghao, is that it?” A grin spread across his face, once echoed by the rest of them. “We were way off on that one, but one out of two’s pretty good. I can’t believe they can actually talk to us now.”

“That’s good though, isn’t it?” Seokmin said happily, giving Hansol a wave. Hansol hesitated, then waved back. Seungcheol smiled. 

“Well, I think it’s only appropriate we tell them our names too, don’t you think?” he suggested lightly, and they all grinned right back at him. Seungcheol simply took off the card hanging around his neck and held it up to the glass. Hansol reached out as though to take it, them bumped right into the tank, which made Seungcheol chuckle. 

He blinked when Hansol frowned, tilting his head from side to side. Eventually, he turned around to say something to Minghao, who shrugged, saying something back that made Hansol roll his eyes. The gold siren turned back to him and shrugged in a defeated manner as well.

“I guess he can’t read it fully then,” Seungcheol sighed, slipping the lanyard back over his neck, where it lay next to a tiny shell strung on a cord. He noted how Hansol’s eyes strayed to his neck. 

“I told you, all of our names have letters past M,” Mingyu huffed loudly. 

“Daesung doesn’t- oh wait, nevermind,” Seokmin began excitedly, then deflated. Seungcheol laughed, patting his back. 

“Well it was worth a shot. And now, at least he can sort of communicate with us,” he said reasonably, and Seokmin brightened again.

A tapping on the glass- from the inside this time, made them look back over. Hansol had rearranged the cards into a new word, and Seungcheol winced at it.

“SEA,” Jun mumbled, his pencil stilling for a rare moment. Seungcheol could see the guilt on his face, especially Seokmin’s.

They wanted to go home, back to the ocean. That much was clear as day, and they knew it.

But they couldn’t. Too much research depended on them. None of the humans could meet Hansol’s big, sad eyes, disappointed and quickly turning hopeless. It was like looking at a kicked puppy. They exchanged a glance, full of doubt, wondering if what they were doing was right.

They looked back when Minghao roused himself, grabbing the cards. Seungcheol frowned at that.

“I thought he couldn’t read…?” he began, trailing off when Minghao set the cards out in front of him. 

“...’FUCK YOU’. How...pleasant,” Mingyu snorted weakly, no real levity in his voice. “I suppose that’s fair.” Again, they exchanged a guilty look; the excitement in the room had disappeared completely. Seungcheol could feel it pressing at his chest, pulling at his heart and telling him that he’d done something wrong. It felt wrong.

Jun moved first, schooling his expression into something blank before putting his pencil behind his ear.

“Well. I think that’s enough siren-to-human interaction for today,” he said flatly. Mingyu followed after a split second of hesitation, looking torn. Seokmin did the same. 

Seungcheol stayed put, giving Hansol and Minghao one last look. Hansol was shuffling the letter cards slowly, looking a little let down, and Minghao had an arm around his shoulders, glaring fiercely at anyone and everyone outside the tank. 

Minhyuk took that moment to talk inside, holding a cup of what looked like coffee mixed with some bright green energy drink, and, sensing the tension in the room, he blinked.

“...Did someone die?”

“Not the time, Minhyuk, leave it,” Seungcheol muttered, moving past him through the open door and up the stairs. He needed to get some fresh air.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel like the only thing Minghao knows how to say in human language is "fuck you" and he asked Jihoon to teach it to him out of spite


	8. Speculation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seungkwan, Wonwoo, and Joshua basically hold a stake-out.

Wonwoo had told him a lot. Well, everything that he knew, which, while it wasn’t much, was still some significant info. Joshua occasionally chipped in with seemingly random bits of knowledge, the source of which Seungkwan had no clue of but enjoyed all the same. He always had the same little smirk on his face, a small, perpetual, crooked smile that hid many secrets. Seungkwan was both intrigued and a little intimidated. 

They’d met a few times over the past week or so, and Seungkwan in turn learned a lot about the other two, probably as much as they already knew about him. Wonwoo, once he came out of his shell, was honestly just a skinny, awkward teenager who didn’t eat or sleep nearly enough, and Joshua was softer than he first appeared, though just as dry as he’d been at first.

Seungkwan wanted to show them where he’d seen the lump in the water. Wonwoo didn’t seem too pleased about leaving his little library sanctuary, but with a bit of coaxing from both Seungkwan and Joshua, they managed to get him to agree. 

“This had better be good,” Wonwoo mumbled, cowering further into his hood as he followed Seungkwan and Joshua. Several people smiled and waved at the prince, and Seungkwan waved back.

“Relax, alright? No one’s gonna attack you or anything,” Seungkwan soothed, giving a high-five to Nayeon as she ran past with Momo.

“...I don’t  _ like _ people though,” Wonwoo whined, pulling his hood more over his face. Joshua chuckled.

“We can go right back after this, ok? I’ll make your favorite tea if you keep going,” he encouraged, and Wonwoo’s nose scrunched up in the way that Seungkwan had come to associate with him either being amused or displeased. He guessed it was the latter. 

“I can always make it myself though,” he pointed out, and, since Seungkwan was walking in front of them, he didn’t see the look Joshua gave Wonwoo, but he did hear Wonwoo’s defeated sigh and mumble of “fine, alright, alright…”

He decided not to ask; looking for the strange water-lump was much more interesting than trying to figure out Joshua’s cryptic looks and knowing smirks.

“This is my favorite place in the entire world,” Seungkwan hummed happily, making his way down the stairs to the beach and taking a hard left, kicking off his flip flops and wiggling his toes in the sand.

“So we’ve been told,” Wonwoo snorted, his tone light instead of mopey. “I guess I can see why. It’s pretty out here.”

“Isn’t it?” Seungkwan sighed happily, practically skipping down to the little cove with the tiny bay. “Anyway, this is where I saw the thing in the water. I was standing right here,” he moved to place his feet right where he had been, “and I was just minding my own business when I saw some kind of lump in the water. I couldn’t exactly see what it was but it kinda looked like a head? It disappeared before I got to stare at it too long though,” he sighed gesturing out to the ocean.

“That’s...very interesting,” Joshua hummed, looking nonchalant. Seungkwan threw him a mildly disdainful look.

“Yeah, it is,” he huffed. Wonwoo snorted, kicking at the sand.

“You sure you weren’t seeing things? It could have just been a trick of the light. Sometimes the ocean makes you see things that aren’t there,” he said lightly, and Seungkwan turned his glare to him.

“I know what I saw! Well, I don’t, but I know it was there. It was definitely  _ something _ .”

“We don’t know if it’ll come back again,” Joshua pointed out, still looking calmly serene, “but we can check it out, I guess. A stake-out of sorts.”

“Seems a little overboard,” Wonwoo mumbled, but Seungkwan had nodded before he could protest further.

“I like that idea. Sounds good. Any idea of what it might have been?” he prompted, and Wonwoo stood up a little straighter.

“Well, it could have been a siren, but I find that unlikely. They’re pretty cautious creatures. It was probably a seal or something of the like.”

“...That doesn’t make me feel better, Wonwoo.”

“...Ok.”

“...Y’know sometimes you’re insufferable. Anyway, do we just sit here all day?” Seungkwan clapped his hands together once, feeling both excited and a little apprehensive. What if he saw the creature again?

Joshua just shrugged. “I have to meet someone in…” he glanced at his watch, “about an hour and a half, but I can stay till then,” he offered, and Seungkwan nodded.

“We can take turns, I guess,” he suggested, and Wonwoo and Joshua nodded. “Joshua, do you wanna take first watch? We’ll come back in like, an hour, and then we can switch.”

“Yeah, that’s alright,” he nodded again, and Seungkwan grinned.

“Right! We’re gonna get to the bottom of this! I’m sure something’s bound to happen today.”

* * *

Several hours later, and nothing had happened. Joshua had left for a while, then came back looking suspiciously happy and just as calm as always. 

It was Seungkwan’s turn to watch, and Joshua had taken a hungry and sleepy Wonwoo out to eat, leaving the prince by himself on the shore. It felt kind of weird and lonely, to sit there in the growing dark and trace circles into the soft, pale sand with a stick. As a naturally sociable person, he probably should have thought to bring a friend with him so he could talk. 

He sighed quietly, scratching the circle he’d drawn away and scuffing it with his foot until the sand was smooth again. After hours of not seeing anything, he was starting to doubt himself. Had he really seen something? Or was Wonwoo right, and the light had just played tricks on his eyes? He didn’t know, and his resolve was starting to falter. He would probably be better off studying, just like his parents wanted…

He jumped when someone suddenly plopped down next to him, and, fairly surprised, he turned to look at Joshua, Wonwoo-less and oddly serious. 

“Jo-Joshua? Why’re you here? It’s not your turn for another half-hour,” Seungkwan began quickly, but Joshua waved him off.

“Wonwoo got tired so I sent him home. Anyway, I wanna talk to you about something I overheard. You know all those articles about SVT? Well I happened to pass someone who works there, and apparently, there’s some real sketchy stuff happening that only a few select people know about. Some big secret involving these big tanks and stuff that only like, 10 people can know about.”

Seungkwan’s eyes widened, and his enthusiasm came creeping back. 

“Really? You heard something? Where? Who? Did they say anything else?” He leaned closer, and Joshua chuckled a little.

“I don’t know who it was, but they were sitting behind me and Wonwoo at that one little cafe on Umber Street. They were whispering to someone about what was going on, so it was hard to understand, but the gist was that something’s happening behind locked doors.” Joshua’s face fell into more serious lines again, and Seungkwan’s excitement sobered slightly. 

“...We should go look,” he suggested, and Joshua’s eyes widened. 

“...That kind of sounds like a stupid idea, no offence. The guys working at that lab are super secretive, and I heard that two of them used to be police officers. I don’t want to get shot, thank you very much. And before you say anything about being a prince and having the right to look around, I don’t think that’ll work either.”

“I didn’t mean literally go inside,” Seungkwan groaned, rolling his eyes. For all his mystical qualities, Joshua could be remarkably dense. “I meant just like, snoop around, y’know? Just hang out and see if we can catch any bits of info.”

Joshua blinked at him, a little skeptical-looking.

“That might work, but it’s getting late, and the darker it gets, the more suspicious it’ll look to everyone else if we hang out there,” he pointed out

“We can just say we’re planning on meeting someone,” Seungkwan countered, but Joshua still looked reluctant.

“You’re not exactly a hard person to recognize. Why would the prince be hanging around SVT labs with a person no one’s seen before, aka me, while waiting for someone who doesn’t exist? People are gonna get suspicious.”

“...Curse you for being a sensible human being,” Seungkwan mumbled, folding his arms. “Well how else are we gonna spy on them? Any better ideas?” Joshua hummed, shrugging a little, and Seungkwan sighed, trying to think of a proper plan that wouldn’t end in them getting arrested. 

“Well we could just hang out by the lighthouse and check if we can hear anything from there,” Joshua suggested slowly, and Seungkwan raised an eyebrow. 

“The lighthouse? You can’t be serious, right? That place is totally haunted.” Everyone in town knew about the old, dilapidated lighthouse on the edge of the city, foreboding and empty. It was used a long time ago, but it had been abandoned many years ago, and now it just stood there on the coast, a mile or two away from everything else, crumbling and cracking.

People had made a game of it once, going in and trying to touch the glass lense that had held the light before it burned out, but ever since someone died trying to get up there, people avoided the building like the plague. Those who were brave enough to approach it said that some times, they heard wet, slapping noises coming from inside, and that they were being caused by the ghost in the lighthouse, drowning any unfortunate soul who happened to pass by.

So understandably, Seungkwan wasn’t too hyped about going there and possibly dying. He loved the water, yes, but he didn’t want to get drowned in it.

But Joshua huffed at him. “C’mon, surely you don’t believe what the people say? It’s not like you’re actually going to get hurt.”

“If Wonwoo says elves and fae and sirens exist, then ghosts and exist, and I would very much like to see a siren before I die,” Seungkwan huffed right back, shaking his head.

“Oh please. If someone died in there on accident then their spectre won’t be strong enough to even show itself,” Joshua scoffed, standing up and brushing the sand from his pants. Seungkwan’s eyebrows shot into his hairline; why did Joshua sound so confident?

“...Why do you know that-”

“I learned it from Wonwoo,” he said quickly, shooting Seungkwan a smile that didn’t do much to assuage his suspicions. But against his better judgement, he stood up to follow anyway, already getting chills at the thought of going to that old, creepy lighthouse.

If he died, he would haunt Joshua forever.

* * *

The walk to the lighthouse took less time than Seungkwan expected, and within half an hour he and Joshua were standing in front of the ruined building, worn from years of not being taken care of. The lantern room at the top, which used to house it’s massive lense, was dark and empty, and Seungkwan knew from whisperings that the lense itself was probably cracked and irreparable. The red and white stripes on the tower were fading and dirty, adding to it’s haunted appearance. In the dark it was even scarier.

Seungkwan shuddered. “Why do we have to be here?” he whined, rubbing his arms briskly. In the fading light of day, the lighthouse seemed even more intimidating, and he wondered if he could convince Joshua to leave their investigation till morning. 

“Because look how close the lab is. We won’t be able to hear anything but we can see things,” Joshua pointed out, gesturing to his right. Seungkwan turned and squinted at the large, sleek building of the SVT labs, less than half a mile away and still lit up with bright lights. He could see people moving through the massive windows, see cars moving in the parking lots. How he wished he could be one of the people in there, actually doing something interesting with their lives…

He chanced a glance at Joshua, only to find that his attention was fixed behind the lighthouse, out on a pier that stood dangerously close to the water. He looked oddly contemplative, and if Seungkwan looked closer he could almost see something like fondness in his gaze. He looked out at the pier as well, but he could see nothing out of the ordinary.

“...What’re you looking at?” he finally asked, raising an eyebrow. Joshua blinked, tearing his eyes away from the water and shaking his head a little.

“Nothing, just...remembered something. Anyway, you feelin’ brave enough to go in or do we just watch from here? We’d get a better view from the lantern room,” he hummed, pointing at said room. Seungkwan shivered again.

“...Let’s just get up there and look for like, five minutes, then I’m leaving,” Seungkwan huffed, steeling himself. He had to know. Joshua sent him an appraising look, making his way down the short path to the door of the lighthouse, which was almost hanging off of it’s hinges, creaking in the faint wind. Seungkwan followed more hesitantly, shooting another look at the well-lit lab.

“How are you not scared?” Seungkwan mumbled quietly, shooting Joshua a raised eyebrow. Joshua just laughed softly, pulling a small flashlight out of his pocket and clicking the beam on.

“After a while, you learn to check and see if something is scary, before letting it scare you,” he hummed cryptically, and Seungkwan blinked. That hardly made any sense. But it was Joshua, so he didn’t push, instead shaking his head and ducking under a low-hanging beam. The whole place seemed ready to fall apart at any second, and Seungkwan had no idea how Joshua navigated like he’d been there before.

Which was very suspicious, but hey, he wasn’t complaining. As long as he didn’t die, then he was fine with it. 

Still, it wasn’t exactly fun, walking around an abandoned lighthouse. The whole place smelled of damp, rotting wood and salt, which made his nose wrinkle at the unpleasant smell. Everything was dark and kind of musty, and the occasional sudden thump didn’t help. Several times, Seungkwan jumped violently when he heard even the faintest of noises. Whenever that happened, Joshua only laughed.

“Relax. Nothing’s gonna hurt us,” Joshua hummed, serene as always as he made his way up the rickety stairs. Seungkwan laughed nervously.

“Yeah, sure, easy for you to say, Mr. ‘I’m mysteriously calm and also probably a wizard’,” Seungkwan shot back, fiddling uneasily with the strings of his hoodie. Joshua just shot him a cryptic smile, which looked even more odd in the dark half-light. The almost-full moon hung creepily in the cloud-strewn sky, and somehow it’s imperfect sphere put Seungkwan off more than it should have.

You sure you know what you’re doing, right?” Seungkwan asked warily, looking around as though something might jump out at them from the shadows. 

“Sure. I’ve...been here before,” Joshua hummed, and for perhaps the first time ever, Seungkwan noticed hesitance in his voice, like he was unwilling to share. That was odd. 

“Than I’m blaming you if we die,” Seungkwan chuckled mirthlessly, rubbing his arms. Goosebumps covered his skin even though he wasn’t that cold, and he couldn’t shake the crawling feeling that someone, no, some _ thing _ was watching him. He glanced around for the millionth time, but as usual, he saw nothing. 

“Alright, we’re here,” Joshua murmured, somewhat unnecessarily, as they climbed the short ladder into the lense room. Seungkwan was eager to put a wall to his back as he hoisted himself to his feet, and the moment he could, he pulled out his phone, switching on the flashlight and peering through the dark. 

The lense room was completely empty, save for the massive piece of curved glass sitting in the middle of the room. Through the bars separating them, Seungkwan could see a huge crack running through the lense, marring it’s otherwise perfect surface. He shuddered again, for some reason.

Tearing his eyes away from the lense, he could see cobwebs absolutely everywhere which he avoided going near, and every once in a while he heard small rustling noises, like mice or rats. It just set him more on edge.

Joshua, of course, didn’t seem fazed, instead standing by the windows closest to the lab and peering through them, trying to see past the layers upon layers of grime smearing the glass. 

“See anything?” Seungkwan hissed, not sure why he was whispering.

“Not really,” Joshua shrugged, handing Seungkwan the flashlight. “I wish I had your binoculars.” Seungkwan cursed under his breath; how could he have forgotten them?

“Either way, it’d be hard to see,” Joshua continued, leaning closer to the glass and wiping away a bit of grime with his sleeve. Through the now much cleaner glass, Seungkwan could see the outline of the SVT lab, shining bright and clean. He could also see a bit of the ocean, dark and choppy in comparison.

Then suddenly he squinted, bumping Joshua aside with his hip gently to gaze out into the water. Was he seeing what he thought he was seeing…?

His hand shot out to grab Joshua’s arm, fingers digging into his sleeve.

“That’s it,” he whispered hoarsely, pointing out into the water, where a small but distinct lump stood out against the water. “That’s what I saw.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I promise the good shit is coming soon dw


	9. Panic! At The...Laboratory?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hansol goes through some tests, and he is not having it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tbh this was a really fun chapter to write idk why

When Hansol fell asleep, it was the same as always: under Minghao’s arm, nestled in their makeshift seaweed bed. It was nowhere near as comfortable as his little cove back in the ocean, where there was an actual, cushy little space, comprised mostly of pillows he’d stolen from shipwrecks. The colors were faded and they were unravelling a little, but they were still nice to lie on.

When he woke up, he was above water, nowhere near Minghao, and his whole body was tied down to something hard and flat, crushing his dorsal fin a little. There was something soft in his mouth, tied around his face, preventing him from bringing his lips together, and there was a harsh white light above and all around him, practically blinding him.

So, like any normal siren, he panicked. He could breathe of course, he had lungs, but in the moment, he was too disoriented to remember how to use them, and subsequently, he stopped breathing for a few terrifying moments, chest heaving but not taking in air. He thrashed around weakly, trying to escape from whatever was tying him down, but it was useless, and it only made him panic more.

He let out a shrill whine- it was the only sound he could really make- shaking his head violently from side to side as his fingertips started to tingle weirdly. He could hear movement, could sense it in the corners of his vision, and he strained to get away from it, though again, to no avail. His senses were starting to shut down, and if he didn’t calm down soon, he knew he would probably pass out, but he didn’t quite register it, mind too disoriented to care.

He flinched violently when he suddenly heard voices close to him, speaking the Land-Walker language. He couldn’t understand it in his panic, but they sounded just as uneasy, shrill and rapid-fire.

Then suddenly the harsh lighting was dimmed, and hands were gently cupping his face. He didn’t like the touch, didn’t trust it, but they wouldn’t let go, holding him still and forcing him to look up into the gaze of the doe-eyed Land-Walker, who was mumbling softly under his breath, slow and deliberate and quiet. He didn’t break eye contact, and Hansol’s own eyes flickered between his frantically as he let out another scared noise.

The doe-eyed Land-Walker simply continued holding his face, and the first thing that Hansol became fully aware of was that his hands were warm and covered in some kind of leathery-feeling substance that definitely wasn’t skin.

Oddly enough, it was perhaps that revelation that caused him to calm down a little. Though his heart was still beating way too fast to be healthy, he slowly stopped his desperate thrashing, relaxing a little even though his hands continued to scrabble for purchase on the smooth surface of...whatever he was lying on.

Hearing and breathing came next, and as the Land-Walker’s thumbs gently pet the skin under his eyes, he remembered how to use his lungs and ears again. He forced down great, heaving breaths of air past the soft object in his mouth, and he heard more voices, a little further away, now sounding more concerned than frightened. He could sort of understand them again.

“-eah, like that,” the doe-eyed Land-Walker was mumbling, voice gentle and quiet like he was talking to a small child or a scared animal. “Deep breaths, ok? Deep breaths. You’re alright.” He had a nice voice, Hansol registered distantly, somewhere in the back of his brain, deep and calm and controlled. His eyes were nice too, kind and jet-black and a little worried but warm. Like Jihoon’s, Hansol remembered. How he missed Jihoon.

Slowly, his hands stilled, and it became easier to take in air, though his heart was still beating a painful rhythm against his ribs. He made another quiet, terrified noise, but the Land-Walker shushed him, still petting his cheeks.

“Shh, it’s ok, it’s ok, you don’t need to panic. You’re perfectly ok. Nothing is going to hurt you. Minghao is ok too; he’s still asleep. Nothing’s gonna hurt him either. You’re ok,” he repeated, over and over again in his soft, soothing voice, and, when he felt steady enough, Hansol nodded a couple times, though he did not at all trust any of the strange Land-Walkers around him.

The doe-eyed one froze for a moment, and Hansol flinched, wondering if he’d done something wrong. But there wasn’t anger in his eyes, only surprise and excitement.

“Can you...can you understand me?” he asked quietly, voice a little breathless, and Hansol nodded again, starting to feel a little more confused than scared. Jeonghan knew how to speak the Land-Walker language, so did he and Jihoon, and they were slowly teaching Soonyoung, Minghao, and Chan. Was that so strange?

“Holy shit,” the doe-eyed Land-Walker mumbled, looking up from him to someone Hansol couldn’t see. “Jun! Jun he can understand me!” he called, and Hansol flinched again at the volume. Sounds were louder underwater, yes, but at their close proximity, Hansol’s ears still hurt a little.

“No fucking way,” came a new voice, slightly accented, and Hansol blinked as the pretty Land-Walker bent over him, eyes just as excited. “Can you?” Hansol nodded slowly again, looking between them. He just wanted to get off of whatever he was lying on and back into the water, back to Minghao, back to the ocean.

“Damn,” the pretty Land-Walker whispered, scribbling something down on a flat, thin object with a white sheet on it.

“That’s incredible,” hummed a new voice, deep and a little flat, and Hansol’s eyes widened at the sight of the scary Land-Walker, the one with the strange, L-shaped object that could put him and Minghao to sleep. He shook his head violently, trying to get away again. He didn’t like that one; he was scary.

“Hey, hey, calm down, it’s just Seungri,” the doe-eyed Land-Walker said quickly, cupping his face again with gentle hands. Hansol tried to wiggle out of his grip anyway, terrified that he might be put to sleep and not wake up.

“Alright, alright, fuck, Seungri, get out, just until we’re done, ok?” The pretty Land-Walker sounded stressed, and that just made Hansol more uneasy. Thankfully though, after a surprised, slightly searching look, the scary Land-Walker, apparently named “Seungri”, disappeared from his vision, leaving him alone with the two much nicer Land-Walkers.

“It’s ok, it’s alright, he won’t hurt you,” the doe-eyed one cooed in a soft voice, and oddly enough, Hansol did feel a little comforted. He went still again in a considerably shorter amount of time, though he was still uneasy, and he really just wanted to get away. The lights, even if they were dimmed, were starting to hurt his eyes.

“So you can really understand us, can’t you,” the pretty one huffed, sounding dumbfounded, and Hansol nodded again, wondering why they kept asking.

“Can- can you talk, too?” the doe-eyed one asked, sounding hopeful. A little uncertainly, a little hesitantly, Hansol nodded, wondering how they would react.

The two Land-Walkers just shared a glance above him, their eyes unreadable. The doe-eyed one looked back down at him first, and Hansol noticed that there were still hands on his face.

“Well uh...I’m Seungcheol. Hi, I guess,” he offered, shooting him a small smile, and Hansol blinked, nodding slowly. “That’s Jun. The guy who just left was Seungri.” Hansol nodded again. At least Seungcheol and Jun were nice to him.

“I’m gonna tell you a secret: none of us really like Seungri either,” Jun whispered to him, and had he been less tense, maybe Hansol would have laughed. “We only put up with him because he ‘n Seunghyun are best friends.” Hansol didn’t know who the heck Seunghyun was, so he shrugged, and Jun chuckled. Why, he didn’t know.

“Anyway, really sorry about all this,” Seungcheol began, petting his cheeks again, “we didn’t think you’d wake up so fast. We were just gonna do some real quick brain scanning and some super basic tests and then we were gonna put you right back. Promise.”

“I’d let you talk, but…” Jun shrugged apologetically, “safety first. We just… Understand that we can’t totally trust you. I know you probably don’t trust us either, and that’s only fair, but we won’t hurt you or Minghao. We promise.”

Hansol simply looked between them for a moment, searching, trying to see a lie in their words. He almost wanted to find one.

But there was nothing but sincerity in their gazes, and, almost a little disappointed, Hansol nodded. Seungcheol smiled at him, warm and soft, petting his cheeks one last time before letting him go. Hansol noticed that his hands were covered in some kind of blue substance, which must have been the source of the leathery feeling.

“This is only gonna take, like, 5 or 6 minutes. It won’t hurt at all. You just need to stay still. If you want, we can put you to sleep again if it’ll make you more comfortable-” Hansol cut Jun off by shaking his head violently. He didn’t want to go to sleep again.

“Alright, alright, you can stay awake,” Seungcheol said quickly, petting his hair. Hansol huffed through his nose; he’d _definitely_ be staying awake.

“Sassy,” Jun chuckled, patting the top of his head gently. “Don’t worry,” he added, “you’ll be fine.”

Of course, Hansol couldn’t totally believe that, not 100%, but their voices were strangely calming, so he relaxed a little more, nodding again.

“You’ll be alright,” Seungcheol mumbled, almost to himself. Hansol blinked at him, then tried to look up as whatever he was lying on started moving. He looked around the best he could, only to find that he was being slid into some kind of strange tube, smooth and dark and dim. Lights flashed and blinked and beeped and he found it all a little disorienting. The calm, neverending, deep blue light of the ocean was much more soothing.

“Just stay still. Think about whatever you want, so long as it doesn’t get you too emotional,” Jun said softly, from somewhere below him and to his left. He nodded again, closing his eyes and focusing on the slight ache in his dorsal fin where it was pressed too close to his tail. The soft thing in his mouth was uncomfortable too, but at least he could breathe.

He opened his eyes when he started to hear a soft whirring noise, but he couldn’t see anything happening. A little confused, he closed his eyes again, trying to think of something calming.

The ocean was calming. He liked falling asleep to the sound of the water, the rushing of the tides and the currents, only audible if he really listened. Sometimes, if he went out far enough and stayed silent for long enough, he could hear the whales, crooning their songs to each other over hundreds of miles. The whales were important, old spirits that embodied wisdom. He’d never seen one, but he wanted to.

He let out a slow breath, focusing on the memory of their strange-yet-beautiful noises. Jeonghan told him they were majestic creatures, things to be respected. They made him curious.

“Alright, all done,” came Seungcheol’s voice, sooner than he expected. The whirring stopped, and a quiet beep sounded from somewhere to his right, then he was being slid out of the tube and back into the too-bright lights that he squinted against.

“See? No biggie,” Jun said brightly, patting his hair. Hansol blinked at him, trying to look as deadpan as possible.

“Now we just need scale samples,” Seungcheol hummed, and Hansol’s eyes widened. Pulling scales before they fell out on their own was like ripping off his own fingernails. It would hurt more for him than Minghao since his scales were bigger, shield-shaped and interlocking in a very specific way to keep him streamlined in the water.

Needless to say, it would be painful. He shook his head quickly, trying to twitch away, but again, the weird straps restrained him, keeping him pinned in place.

“No? Is it painful?” Jun asked quickly, and Hansol nodded rather desperately. Jun and Seungcheol exchanged another look, seemingly a little worried.

“Do they fall out? Or do you keep the same set of scales your whole life?” Seungcheol asked curiously, snagging the thin object from Jun’s hands and peering at it’s flat surface. Hansol gave them an equally flat look; how was he supposed to respond if he couldn’t talk?

“Oh, right, uh, one at a time. Do they fall out?” Seungcheol corrected, and Hansol nodded. He’d stress-shed a couple scales during his time in the tank, and he knew Minghao had too.

“Interesting. Can we have them?” Jun hummed, snatching the flat object back and writing something on it. Hansol shrugged the best he could, nodding again. He didn’t know why the Land-Walkers would need his scales, but he had no use for them once they fell out anyway, other than just sitting there and looking pretty.

“Coolio,” Seungcheol nodded, fiddling with something on whatever he was lying on. Speaking of, his dorsal fin was really starting to ache and he wanted to get back in the water. He tried to wiggle a little to show as much, but he only succeeded in making it hurt more.

“Sorry, sorry, we’ll get you right back into the tank, just give me like, two minutes,” Jun mumbled, scribbling furiously. Hansol huffed, rolling his eyes, and Seungcheol snickered.

“Allllrighty,” Jun muttered after a while, nodding to himself and tucking a thin, pointy rod behind his ear. “Done! We’re gonna put you back now,” he added, somewhat unnecessarily. Still, Hansol nodded eagerly, more than ready to get off of the strange, moving platform.

“If I let you up, you better not attack us, alright?” Seungcheol said suddenly, and Hansol nodded again. Anything to sit up and stretch his fins and get back into the water.

“Seungcheol,” Jun said warningly, and Hansol deflated a little. Of course, they didn’t trust him. Well, he didn’t trust them either. He tried not to look too disappointed when Seungcheol shrugged apologetically.

He narrowed his eyes slightly when the movement dislodged a thin cord around Seungcheol’s neck. He’d seen the little shell attached to it, and initially he’d been a little surprised. It was a tiny orange sea urchin shell, strung on a cord and put around his neck. Hansol knew from that Jeonghan told him that those kinds of sea urchins were hard to find, and lived only in deep water. He wondered how Seungcheol had gotten one. It could have been a fake, but the smell of sea salt still lingered faintly on it.

He made a quiet noise, pointing his finger the best he could at Seungcheol’s neck. The Land-Walker blinked at him for a second, looking confused. “Seashell,” he tried to say, but it ended up sounding more like “ea-eh”, which wasn’t very telling.

Seungcheol and Jun exchanged another look. Jun shrugged. Seungcheol looked back down when Hansol made a slightly more frustrated noise, huffing and tossing his chin at Seungcheol’s neck.

“...Something on my chest?” he asked carefully, raising an eyebrow. Hansol shook his head, tipping his chin a little higher. Seungcheol merely blinked at him for a second, then his eyes went wide and he made a kind of excited “oooh!” noise, pulling the seashell off of his neck.

“This?” he prompted, holding it out, and Hansol nodded. How did he get it? “You like it? I got it in some weird shop on the edge of town, near that old lighthouse,” he shrugged, playing with the shell. Hansol frowned while Jun shuddered.

“Why do you even bother going over there? It’s creepy,” Jun mumbled, shaking his head. Seungcheol snorted, putting the cord back around his neck.

“I didn’t actually go to the lighthouse. I was only over there because I was exploring and I found this tiny house. Turned out to be a little shop. The guy in there was strange; he kept smiling at me like he knew something I didn’t.” He shivered a little, and Hansol frowned further. Was that normal Land-Walker behavior?

Jun just shook his head again. “Why’d you even buy something then?” he huffed, and Seungcheol shrugged, expression iffy.

“I don’t know, honestly, I felt compelled to. It caught my eye, I guess. I didn’t want to be rude and leave without getting anything, and it looked pretty, so…” He shrugged again, and Jun rolled his eyes.

That was all well and good, Hansol thought, but now could they hurry up? His whole tail was starting to cramp. He flicked the end of his tail and the translucent, fan-shaped appendage slapped wetly against the platform.

“Right, right, sorry,” Jun mumbled apologetically, scurrying to a place where Hansol couldn’t see him and doing something that caused a loud, sharp beep to ring through the air. Hansol tried his best not to wince, shutting his eyes briefly. Seungcheol patted the top of his head.

Jun reappeared and suddenly Hansol started moving again, under an opening and through a couple more rooms before they got into a big silver box, which, if anything, just made him feel more claustrophobic.

“We have to do this on Minghao next; do you think you could ask him to cooperate?” Jun’s voice was sheepish, and from the small amount of his side profile that Hansol could see, he looked a little apologetic. Hansol just shrugged; Minghao was a lot more...fiery than him. He could try, certainly, but…

“That’s going to be fun for Seokmin and Mingyu,” Seungcheol chuckled. Hansol blinked at that; who were they? Seungcheol must have noticed his confused look because he smiled quickly. “Mingyu’s the beanpole; acts like a puppy sometimes. Seokmin’s the one with the pointy nose and million-watt smile. Grins all the time.” Hansol nodded a little, easily formulating their faces in his thoughts. They seemed nice, if not rather excitable. Well, if they were anything like Jun and Seungcheol, then he wouldn’t have a problem with them. Minghao on the other hand, might.

Scratch that, he probably would have a problem with it. But hey, he could try…

The silver box suddenly split open and Hasol blinked, trying to follow the twists and turns they took but ultimately getting too confused to keep track. Why was everything so...maze like? He wondered how they navigated so well. He kind of wanted to watch how their legs worked, see how the heck they managed to hold themselves up on those spindly twigs; everything felt so much...heavier outside the water, like there was something pressing on him at all times. It was nothing like the weightlessness of the ocean.

He made a happy noise when they passed through one more opening and were greeted with a now-familiar, dim blue light. Seungcheol laughed softly from somewhere behind him, and Jun chuckled a little as well.

“Just a little bit more, then you can go in,” Seungcheol hummed, pushing him onto one of the vertically-moving platforms. Hansol watched as both of the Land-Walkers put something into their ears, and he guessed they were to protect them from...him. Right, he was a siren, and the Land-Walkers didn’t trust him.

The thought made him oddly sad.

But he pushed it away, focusing on the way Seungcheol was loosening the bonds around his wrists, allowing him to stretch and flex his arms a little. The moment he was loose, he waited until Seungcheol’s face wasn’t so close to his nails, then rubbed at his wrists with a vaguely pained noise.

He jolted when the platform suddenly started moving, pushing them up, up, up, to the top of the tank. By the time they reached the top, Seungcheol had undone all of the weird straps binding his tail down, and after gesturing for him to sit up, Seungcheol stepped back a couple paces, looking wary. Hansol just swung his tail over the side of the flat surface he was on, pulling off the soft thing around his face and tossing it to the side.

If he was Minghao, he would have taken that opportunity to _scream_. Minghao would have done anything to get away, back to the ocean, back to somewhere safe. A big part of Hansol wanted to do the same.

But he didn’t. He kept his mouth shut and his eyes on the tank lid, which was being raised slowly. Currently, he was too eager to just get back into the water to care. The moment he had enough room, he slipped down to the floor of the platform and slithered his way beneath the lid, closing his eyes as he hit the cool, refreshing touch of the water. How nice it was, to be back in his element!

After a second of hesitation, he turned to give the two Land-Walkers a thumbs up, one they returned with small smiles. Jun and Seungcheol weren’t so bad, he thought to himself as he dived down to rummage in the sand for any fallen scales. He found a few of his own lodged under Minghao’s elbow, where the other siren was still sleeping.

When he had a small handful, he made his way back to the surface, where Seungcheol was kneeling next to the water. How easy it would be, to catch him off guard, tug him into the water where Minghao could easily incapacitate him…

He simply dropped the scales into Seungcheol’s hand. The Land-Walker’s sleepy doe eyes scrunched up into a smile, and Hansol smiled back hesitantly.

“Thanks,” Seungcheol said, a little bit too loudly, probably because of the thing in his ears. Hansol nodded, sinking beneath the water again as the lid started to close. With a soft sigh, he dove back down, resting next to Minghao and stretching out his faintly-aching dorsal fin.

Right before he closed his eyes, he saw Jun, standing outside his tank and holding up one of Minghao’s crimson scales to the light.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sooooooo, we finally have some human-siren interaction òwó


	10. Stop and Smell the Roses

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seungcheol and co. take a break and Seungcheol takes a few too many shots.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I loved writing this chapter too it just made me chortle

Seungcheol was distracted; even more so than usual. After learning that Hansol could understand them and possibly talk to them, he felt...heavy, like he’d found out something he wasn’t supposed to overhear. Inside the lab, he couldn’t meet Hansol’s eyes (Minghao refused to look at any of them and he sort of thought that was fair), too afraid he’d see some _human_ emotion in them. They were sirens, not humans, he had to keep reminding himself.

But even outside the lab, he felt it: the kind of pressing wrongness that never left. No matter where he went, he always felt like he was doing something he wasn’t supposed to, going directly against his moral code. 

It was a persistent, annoying feeling, one that left him rather unsatisfied. Even Mingyu noticed.

“You doin’ alright? You’ve been off in your own world for a while now,” Mingyu asked quietly one day, maybe a week after the tests. Seungcheol jumped, not paying attention, and subsequently almost dropped his cup of coffee. 

“Good god Mingyu, don’t just come up on me suddenly like that!” he wheezed, clutching his coffee close to his chest. Currently, it was the only thing keeping him alive; it practically ran through his veins. 

“Sorry, but you were the one spacing out again,” Mingyu snorted, clapping his shoulder and almost making him drop his coffee again. He glared at the younger, who merely smirked at him. “What’cha thinkin’ about anyway?” he questioned curiously, and Seungcheol shrugged, humming uneasily.

“Just...some stuff I need to finish,” he mumbled evasively, and Mingyu gave him a raised eyebrow. 

“Stuff like…?” he prompted, and Seungcheol shrugged again.

“Stuff. I need to clean up my apartment, for one,” he snorted, rolling his eyes. Mingyu chuckled, shaking his head.

“You’re always on the move, dude, take a second to stop and smell the roses,” he laughed, waving a hand around. Seungcheol rolled his eyes again and Mingyu huffed.

“He’s right, you need a break,” Seokmin said suddenly, appearing on Mingyu’s other side and making Seungcheol jump again. What was with his friends and them popping up like daisies??

“Break from what? I’m doing fine,” he huffed defensively, and Seokmin pouted.

“Break from...whatever is making you so mopey! You’ve been a little off for a while and it’s concerning.”

“Sooo,” Jun began suddenly, slinging an arm over Seungcheol’s shoulder. Now, during that, Seungcheol totally did _not_ scream and almost drop his coffee for the nth time. Totally not. 

“S-so what?” he muttered, starting to feel a little apprehensive in the way that only Wen Junhui could make him.

“ _So_ , you silly bumpkin, we’re gonna go out and get drinks tonight!” he said cheerfully, and Seungcheol blinked at him. _Bumpkin_??

“Jun, sometimes I worry about you,” he said truthfully, and Jun only laughed.

“I get told that a lot. Now come on! We all have a day off tomorrow and you don’t have anything better to do, right?” At that moment, all three of them started giving him puppy eyes, and though he did his best to harden his heart, Mingyu’s disturbingly realistic little whimper made him break.

“Fine, _fine_! I’ll go. If it’ll like, appease you guys or whatever,” he sighed, waving his free hand around exasperatedly. Instantly, the sad looks melted off of their faces and Seokmin even started dancing around.

Mingyu happened to whack his shoulder a _bit_ too hard in celebration, and Seungcheol watched with wide eyes as his coffee spilled to the ground in one loud splatter. They all fell dead silent, until Seungcheol broke the silence with a sad little whine.

“You guys are buying me drinks.”

* * *

After pulling on a simple outfit consisting only of a hoodie and some jeans, he made his way down to the main street of town, where the city’s only bar was. It was already open, and it would stay open until dawn, which was convenient for a night owl like him who didn’t know what a proper sleep schedule was. 

He met Jun halfway there, and as always, it surprised him to see the other man wearing casual clothes. He just seemed so...work-invested that a sweater looked odd on him.

Mingyu and Seokmin were already there, arguing over whether a tomato should be considered a fruit or not (neither of them were winning but sometimes the bartender pitched in his opinion).

“Well hello to you two, finally,” Seokmin called, waving them over. Seungcheol rolled his eyes, squeezing between a very uncomfortable-looking beanpole of a man and his brown-haired friend before plopping himself down next to Mingyu. 

“Drink,” Jun said sternly, pushing a glass of...something his way. Seungcheol took it without protest; he _did_ need to relax, didn’t he?

“Ok, now what’s got you so mopey? You won’t look at Minghao or Hansol,” Seokmin prodded, scooching a little closer to him and leaning across Mingyu to do so. Seungcheol just shrugged noncommittally, swirling his drink around. He was too sober to start waxing philosophical on the ethical and moral nuances of detaining sentient creatures from their home to study them.

Yep, he was definitely too sober. 

“Dunno, honestly. I think I needed a break,” he lied, shrugging again. Mingyu snorted while Jun gave him a raised eyebrow.

“And you guys say _I’m_ the one who works too hard,” Jun muttered huffily, turning to accept a drink of his own. Seokmin and Mingyu giggled while Seungcheol smirked dryly, definitely still a little too sober for his own tastes. 

Thankfully, the night was (relatively) young, and he had no qualms about getting wasted and exercising his friends’ wallets. And what better way to get wasted and waste your friends’ money than doing shots? Despite knowing he would regret it the next morning, he eagerly engaged Jun in a little drink-off, with Mingyu and Seokmin cheering them on.

When he felt more than just pleasantly tipsy, a sort of buzzing ringing in his ears, he had completely forgotten about why he was troubled in the first place. All he could focus on was the way his cheeks felt warm and the pounding of the music in his ears, just loud enough for him to feel the bass in his chest.

“You guys are still paying,” Seungcheol reminded, voice a little slurred, and Mingyu waved a dismissive hand at him, too busy people-watching. Seungcheol followed his gaze to the corner of the bar, where the thin, out-of-place-seeming man was still sitting with his friend, whose back was to Seungcheol. 

“...Seriously?” he huffed, raising an eyebrow and giving the younger a smirk. He knew Mingyu could be a flirt, and his handsomeness was always a charm, but _that_ man? Who looked like he wanted nothing more than to leave? Mingyu would have to try hard.

“Nothin’ a little liquid courage can’t fix,” Mingyu huffed right back, not even looking at him as he downed a shot and stood up, sauntering off to the corner of the bar. Seungcheol scoffed, turning back to Jun, who was chatting away with a pretty girl to his left, somehow still coherent enough to pass as only a little buzzed. Seungcheol envied him for a moment before Seokmin draped himself over Jun dramatically, complaining about having to get up early. Seungcheol no longer envied Jun at that moment. 

Guessing that he was going to be alone for most of the night, he stood up, a little unsteady on his feet. He clapped Seokmin on the back with a slightly disoriented hand, giving them a smile.

“I’m gonna- gonna walk home,” he managed, shaking his head to try and clear it from the faint dizziness. 

“Drive safe,” Jun said absently, trying to shove Seokmin off of him. Seungcheol laughed a little too loudly and patted Seokmin on the shoulder one last time before making his way out of the bar, where the cool night air did a little to ease the blurriness from his vision.

Of course, being drunk and unsteady, he decided that the best thing in the world would be to take a walk on the beach instead of going home. He liked the beach and he loved the water and it would be nice, Drunk-Seungcheol told himself. 

So with a triumphant little smile he followed the road down to the water, whereupon he had a bit of difficulty navigating the stairs without falling. Thankfully though, he managed to reach the sand without cracking his head open, and it was with a happy little sigh that he tugged off his hoodie and shoes and let the cool sea air hit his arms and face. He walked a little ways into the ocean, just far enough so that the water lapped at his ankles in a pleasant sort of way, and simply stood there for a while.

It was nice, to just stand there and be silent. He certainly wasn’t sober but in the moment he didn’t care, too absorbed at staring up at the moon, just a bare filament of a crescent in the midnight-blue sky. The scent of salt filled his nose and he took slow, deep breaths, chuckling a little to himself but not sure why.

When he had his fill of ocean air, he went back to the sand, wiggling his toes between the fine, soft grains. He plopped himself down on a gentle incline, a little bit above the water, just far away enough so he wouldn’t get soaked, and kept his eyes on the moon.

When he finally closed his eyes, he sighed, long and slow. He could still feel the beat of the bass from the bar in his chest, and he felt kind of warm and tingly all over, enough to lose himself in the feeling and also not care. He flopped back against the sand, using his hoodie as a pillow and letting his thoughts fuzz out.

“You planning to sleep there?” said a breathy voice some time later, and, inhibitions dulled, Seungcheol thought nothing of it. He simply waved a hand lazily in lieu of an answer, and the voice chuckled. He closed his eyes as the sound of shuffling hit his ears, too inebriated to wonder if the voice belonged to someone dangerous or not.

“The sand’s not very comfortable once you lie on it for long periods of time,” the man said again, sounding amused and much closer.

“‘S kinda nice,” he argued, slurring his words a little, and the voice laughed gently.

“You- you have a nice voice. Nice laugh,” Seungcheol mumbled dreamily, head too heavy to raise up and look at whoever was next to him. He couldn’t help himself; he had absolutely 0 filter when he was drunk. He smiled when the voice laughed again. 

“So I’ve been told,” they murmured, and the voice moved a little closer. When Seungcheol had enough motor control to turn his head to smile at them, his eyes were suddenly covered with a cool, slightly damp hand. 

Damp? Why would someone’s hand be damp? It didn’t make sense unless they’d been in the ocean.

It reminded him vaguely of the siren he’d seen in the water, the one with utterly ethereal face and voice like an angel’s. He wanted to see that face again, hear that voice again. It was part of why he’d been so distracted.

“Lemme see you,” he mumbled, half-heartedly trying to bat the offending hand away from his face. The man giggled a little, and Seungcheol ceased his movements, a little entranced.

“Hm...no. I’ve also been told that I’m too pretty, and men who see me are never heard from again,” the voice teased, and that only made Seungcheol want to see the source more. He tried to sit up, but the hand on his eyes pressed gently, keeping his sluggish body pinned in place.

“Ah ah, be good. If I show you my face then I might have to kill you,” they joked, but again, it only increased Seungcheol’s curiosity. 

“You have a nice voice,” he mumbled again, too stupid to think of saying much else. There was a faint, pleasant lilt to the man’s voice, a little accented in a nice sort of way. Seungcheol wanted to listen to him talk forever.

“Are you drunk?” the voice snickered, and Seungcheol shrugged, momentarily giving up on freeing his sight.

“I ain’t sober, for sure,” he hummed nonchalantly. The voice snorted, and the cool fingers on his eyes tapped a steady rhythm against his skin. It felt kinda nice, and he sighed loosely, relaxing again. He had no idea how he could be so calm, but he didn’t register it. The man beside him could have been a serial killer for all he knew but he was too intoxicated to care, so oh well.

He blinked a couple times, then closed his eyes, sighing again. The smell of the sea and the sound of the waves were quickly lulling him into a half-awake state, and by the time the hand slowly removed itself from his face, he didn’t immediately turn to see its owner.

“You have long eyelashes,” the man said, and Seungcheol smiled a little.

“So I’ve been told,” he chuckled, parroting his words from earlier. Keeping his eyes closed, he turned his head in the direction of the voice, and no hand came to cover his vision. Spurred on, he blinked open one eye curiously, wondering just who he was lying with.

His eyes widened when they fell upon the most beautiful creature he’d ever seen. In his drunkenness, he could only stare, mouth slightly agape at the man’s angelic, rather feminine features. He was even smiling a little, lips tilting up in a way that made Drunk-Seungcheol _really_ tempted to kiss him. His pale skin glowed under the faint moonlight, and Seungcheol felt a little drunk for entirely different reasons.

“...You’re _really_ pretty,” was all he was able to say, somewhat stunned. Thankfully, the man just laughed, adjusting his chin on his arms. He was lying on his stomach, peering at Seungcheol through dark but warm eyes, knowing and clever. 

“You’re kinda cute yourself,” the man hummed, and had Seungcheol been a little less loose-minded, maybe he would have stuttered and gotten embarrassed. But in the moment he only felt kind of warm inside, and not from the alcohol running through his veins. His heart was doing stupid things inside his chest for some reason, and he had no idea how to stop it. He kind of didn’t want to.

He noticed after a second that the man wasn’t wearing a shirt, which was odd. His eyes involuntarily traveled down the line of his bare shoulders, over the flawless, faintly-gleaming skin of his back, but before he could look any lower, a hand caught his chin and gently tilted it back up with cool, slender fingers. 

“Eyes up here,” the man chuckled, petting Seungcheol’s cheek with the back of his hand for a brief moment. The tender motion was nice, and Seungcheol unconsciously tilted his head into the touch. 

“What- what’s your name?” he mumbled, blinking a couple times to try and reorient himself. The man hummed softly, and the note made something in Seungcheol’s chest tighten, tugging and pulling at his heart to go closer to the other. It was strange, but he didn’t move, still too out of it to do anything other than stare. 

“You can call me...Hannie,” the man hummed decisively, and Seungcheol smiled. That was a cute little name.

“‘M Seungcheol,” he offered a few seconds too late, and Hannie laughed. He had such a nice voice…

“Seungcheol,” Hannie repeated, and Seungcheol smiled wider at the sound of his name coming off of the other man’s tongue. The way he said it was...alluring, like it had a physical weight to it.

“So tell me, Seungcheol,” Hannie began, still idly petting his cheek, “why are you lying here drunk on the sand when there are plenty of other places to crash?”

“I- I like the ocean,” Seungcheol stammered, again a couple seconds too late. He was too caught up in staring to register the other man’s words quick enough. “I work at the lab. I’ve always loved the water.”

Hannie’s hand froze on his cheek, then moved to cup it. Again, Seungcheol was reminded of the siren in the water. Hannie and the siren kind of looked alike, he thought distantly. 

“You work at the lab?” Hannie asked, moving a little closer. Seungcheol nodded slowly, eyes moving down to his lips. He wasn’t really aware that he was blatantly staring at another (shirtless) man’s lips, but he didn’t care. “Has anything...interesting happened lately?” Hannie prompted casually, and again, Seungcheol nodded.

“Yeah, we uh...we caught some new stuff,” he mumbled. Somewhere in his mind, he knew he was doing something wrong; that info was supposed to be top secret.

“Stuff like?” Hannie hummed, moving to hold his face over Seungcheol’s. He even had pretty hair, long and falling over his shoulders. It was also wet, for some reason, like he’d been in the ocean only moments prior.

“Sec-secret stuff,” he offered, _just_ sober enough to keep his mouth shut. 

“I won’t tell a soul, Cheolie, you can trust me,” Hannie whispered, and there was something new in his voice, powerful and irresistible. Seungcheol found it incredibly hard to disobey.

“We- we found sirens. Two of them,” he murmured, eyes moving back up to look into the other man’s. His eyes were hard to read, shadowed and half-narrowed. 

“Oh?” Hannie hummed, and his voice still held that weird grain of some kind of ancient power. “Names?”

“Hansol and Minghao,” he said easily, slowly propping himself up on his elbows. “Hansol’s cool and Minghao is...grumpy.” He couldn’t think of anything smarter to say; every part of him was fixed on the way Hannie’s voice rang in his ears and echoed in his head like the most beautiful melody.

Hannie’s fingers dug ever-so-slightly into his skin.

“Is that so?” he finally mumbled after a moment, letting go of Seungcheol’s cheek. “That’s very interesting. Thank you for telling me, Cheolie.”

“Yeah, no- no problem,” he offered with a weak grin. Hannie smiled back at him, but it looked thin and almost threatening. 

“You should go home. You’ll get a cold if you stay out here any longer,” Hannie hummed, going back to petting his cheek. Seungcheol almost wanted to protest, but he just kept his mouth shut for a couple seconds. In those few seconds, the hand on his cheek moved to cover his eyes again, and Seungcheol closed them. 

When the hand left again, he didn’t open his eyes right away. He heard shuffling beside him and assumed it was Hannie simply getting comfortable, but when he finally did open his eyes, the man was no longer there, leaving only a bit of slightly-disturbed sand in his wake. 

That was odd. He sat up properly and looked around, but there was no sign of the pretty man along the shoreline. That was even more odd. Where could he have gone? Seungcheol wanted to just...look at him some more, engrain the man’s face into his memory.

“...Huh,” he mumbled to himself, running a hand over his face and through his hair as he sat there dumbly. Eventually though, he stood up on slightly wobbly legs, feeling a little more clear-headed than before but still more than a bit disoriented.

Well, if anything, he was at least glad that the town was small. It meant he could walk home and likely not get run over, if he wasn’t stupid. Hopefully.


	11. House Arrest

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seungkwan finds himself a prisoner of his own house. He decides reading to be a good past time.

Seungkwan had gotten the scolding of a lifetime when he got home from the night at the lighthouse. His mother was apparently still up, and ranted for at least an hour on how dangerous it was to be out at night where people could hurt him or mug him or do literally anything to him. He’d zoned out within the first few words, too focused on what had happened.

Joshua had looked out into the water, and the knowing little smile that was ever-present on his face completely disappeared.

“...Seungkwan, go home,” he’d said in a voice far too serious for the young prince’s liking.

“What? No way!” he’d hissed back, but Joshua wasn’t having it. The cat-eyed man had handed him the flashlight and started making his way back down the lighthouse, Seungkwan following closely behind.

“What are you doing? Why do I need to leave?” Seungkwan had whisper-yelled, but Joshua had stopped him with a somber expression that made him uneasy, and once again told him to go home. Seungkwan had obeyed with great reluctance, but only because of the way Joshua’s eyes left no room for argument. 

When he’d glanced back, Joshua was standing on the pier, looking out into the ocean with a hand outstretched. He shivered at the memory.

And when he got home, his mother had seen him, blew up, and sent him to bed with no excuses. That was how he ended up under house arrest for the time being, until he could, as his dear mother put it, “learn to think about his own safety”. 

He was _beyond_ bored. At that point, he would have done anything to step outside and go to the beach. A week or so imprisoned in your own house, no matter how big it is, will do that to a person. He just wanted to go _outside_.

But of course, he wasn’t allowed to, not for like, a week and a half. His mother had made it quite clear that he was not to stay out past sunset anymore, no matter how old he was. He felt like a child and he hated it with a burning passion. He was old enough to take care of himself, prince or not, thank you very much!

He was reduced to wandering the house over and over again, exploring for hidden niches and hunting for any secret passages. He roused himself only with the thought of maybe finding another tunnel. He didn’t dare to use the one in the library, not with his mother’s watchful eye lingering on him at every moment, so he avoided that tunnel in general.

The pull to escape was insane though, and it took a lot of his willpower not to simply run away. If he did that, he knew his parents would likely not be so lenient. At least he got to wander the gardens, but he could always feel eyes on him from every angle. It made him shiver unpleasantly but he could only shake them off by locking himself in his room for hours on end.

Which was why he was extremely bored. He could still fuck around on his laptop and phone, but texting eventually got boring as well and there was only so much fun he could have while meandering online (he had no idea how to discreetly contact Wonwoo or Joshua, so that was out of the question too). He wanted to get up and out and run around without some bodyguard breathing down his neck. Was that so much to ask for? He didn’t think he had any enemies in the town he’d have to look out for anyway.

He tried telling his mother as much, but as usual, she didn’t listen. She talked about him like he was a frail newborn surrounded by wolves. 

“Mom, literally no one in that town wants to hurt me!” he’d protested. She’d given him a sharp look, her classic “you’re dumb but you’re my son and I love you so I’ll just keep telling you until you get my point” look.

“You don’t know that,” she’d huffed, and promptly sent him off to his classes. He hadn’t paid attention at all, just to spite her.

“Seungkwan, I know you’re upset, but can you _please_ pay attention for 10 seconds? 10 seconds! That’s all I ask.” The desperate voice of his history teacher broke through his thoughts, and he jumped a little, shaking his head.

“Sorry, sorry,” he mumbled, picking up his pencil from where it had dropped out of his hand. His teacher sighed.

“Seriously, Seungkwan, if you can’t focus on your studies, you’re only gonna have to study more. You know your mother will keep you here until you can.”

“See, even you agree that this is basically house arrest,” he muttered under his breath.

“What was that?”

“Nothing!” he sighed loudly, leaning back in his chair. “I just- it’s hard to focus when I have so many other fun things I could be doing. I have a life, y’know.”

“Things like what, Seungkwan?” his teacher sighed, turning back to the board in front of her and scribbling down the name of some place Seungkwan didn’t bother trying to remember. He did tense up though, a little worried now. If they found about his little expeditions, then his mother would most certainly forbid him from ever leaving the house again.

“Like hanging out with my friends,” he said evasively, keeping his voice light. His teacher shot him a slightly disbelieving look and he glanced away. 

“Seungkwan, I know you’re young, and I know you probably want to be doing anything _but_ learning to rule a kingdom, but this kind of thing is important. You’re the only heir, and if you get hurt, then everything will fall apart.”

“That makes me want to study less,” Seungkwan said dryly. His teacher chuckled with equal enthusiasm. 

Technically, it wasn’t like he didn’t _want_ to be king, he was all for it honestly, but the responsibility and seemingly useless lessons were a big turn-off. He wanted to be a king that interacted with his people, who walked among them and could have fun together. He didn’t want to be holed up in his house all the time learning about dead people. He wanted to have friends and be alive and run around outside.

He knew it was a fanciful thought; he was a prince, and someday, he’d have an entire kingdom under his rule. He had a responsibility and he knew he had to uphold it; he shouldn’t be so optimistic about ruling.

But he couldn’t blame himself, he was a kid! He should be allowed to live his childhood years in blissful freedom before donning the weight of thousands of people.

Alas, he was stuck in his classroom, learning about people he couldn’t remember and lamenting over his momentary imprisonment in his head.

Well, at least he’d be free soon. His mother had unceremoniously told him 10 days. He was to stay in the house at all times for 10 days to try and reduce his “risk-seeking tendencies”. Which sounded stupid, but hey, he was just glad it wasn’t longer. He’d have to be more careful next time.

* * *

On the last day, Seungkwan was practically shaking with pent-up energy. All he could think about is how tomorrow, he was going to be allowed to actually go outside again.

He can’t concentrate on anything. Not his lessons, not any of his palace friends, not even on his electronics. He just wants to go back to the ocean and drown himself in it (he means that in a loving way). The prospect made him so excited that even eating breakfast was a challenge.

“Seungkwan, stop drumming your fork on the table,” his father sighed, sounding bored and a little vacant as usual. Seungkwan stopped, but rolled his eyes when he did. His mother shot him a mild glare that he ignored, instead digging into his eggs and bacon with a sort of ferocity born of boredness. He also ignored his mother’s tired sigh.

Once he was done eating, he nearly sprinted from the table, stopping only to grab an orange and slip it into his pocket before locking himself in his room. Just one more day, then he’d be free. Well, his mother would likely put some kind of body guard on him, because she was extra that way, but Seungkwan knew the town like the back of his hands; he could slip away easily enough.

That thought made him grin as he flopped onto his bed, yanking his laptop towards him and quickly opening it, bringing up Wonwoo’s mermaid facts to look over them again. He’d read the whole article several times over during his little imprisonment, but it never failed to catch his interest. Just where did Wonwoo learn such facts? How?

And who _was_ Joshua, really? He just seemed so...mysterious.

He shook his head; that was a conversation for another day and another time. Right now, it was siren time. So for perhaps the 100th time, he scanned the article for any thing he might have missed, though as usual, he found nothing new. 

Except when he scrolled to the very bottom of the page. In the very last paragraph, where there were some simple trivia facts and whatnot, something new had been added.

“Can be very protective of their podmates,” Seungkwan read aloud, squinting at the screen. What was that supposed to mean? Why would Wonwoo add that? How would he learn that?

Did he know a siren? 

Seungkwan immediately shook his head. That was a fanciful idea, no matter how strange Wonwoo and Joshua were. That was highly improbable. There was no concrete proof that sirens even existed…

Right?

That was what Seungkwan told himself, but he couldn’t shake the lingering feeling of foreboding that hung over his head when he clicked out of the tab.

* * *

He decided to look at the official website of the SVT labs, just to check if anything had been updated. Unfortunately for him, it was the same as always. He turned to the news, and though he didn’t really trust a lot of the media, he figured it was worth a shot.

That was where things got more interesting.

“SVT Lab: In The Middle Of A Dangerous Experiment?”

“SVT Lab Workers Hiding Secrets?”

“Lee Seungri, Former Policeman; Involved In A Past Scandal.”

Seungkwan rolled his eyes; he’d seen all those articles before, they didn’t surprise him. 

He did however, click on the article about the policeman. Strictly speaking, Seungkwan wasn’t super into gossip, but he’d take information where he could get it. Every lie had a grain of truth in it, after all.

“Lee Seungri, former policeman, now involved at SVT Laboratories, used to be a well-respected and revered man on the force. What made him turn to such a different job? Evidence suggests that he may have been part of an old case gone bad and left unresolved, forgotten until now,” Seungkwan read aloud to himself, raising an eyebrow. 

“Though police were not allowed to give detailed reports, past public files hint at Lee’s involvement in many past cases of harassment, abuse, and assault- and as the perpetrator.” At that, Seungkwan’s eyes widened in surprise. He’d heard the policeman was grumpy, but that seemed like a bit of a stretch. Would the lab even take in someone like that?

The rest of the article was vague and relatively unhelpful. The only information of note was that, several years ago, one of the victims from one of Seungri’s assault cases had died under mysterious circumstances, and no one knew where her body had gone. 

Seungkwan decided that was enough poking around for the day. He closed the tab as quickly as possible, instead pulling up some music he hoped would soothe him and losing himself in the sounds of his favorite bands. 

Slowly, he forgot about the foreboding article, too busy trying to scan the internet for any more reliable siren information. He found little. Most of it sounded like it was written by a 13-year old mermaid enthusiast, not a proper scientist. Well, he supposed Wonwoo wasn’t exactly a proper scientist, but he was close enough. Something about him made Seungkwan trust him.

But Joshua was just purely strange. Seungkwan wanted to ask why he was so...cryptic.

Oh well. He’d ask tomorrow.

* * *

By the time 8 o’clock rolled around, Seungkwan was still brimming with energy, practically bouncing off the walls in an attempt to find an outlet for his pent-up enthusiasm. He had wandered the whole house twice, and he was starting on his third round, trying to find something interesting to look at. He could have probably read something in the library but that would have been boring.

Wait. Wonwoo had published more than one book, hadn’t he? Seungkwan could go read those. Fae and elves, similarly strange, mythical, magical creatures that Seungkwan still had a hard time believing were real. It all just seemed so...impossible.

Still, he turned on his heel and walked briskly to the library, nodding politely to anyone he passed, giving them a small smile to reduce suspicion. Only one person gave him a strange look, and he ignored them.

When he got to the library, he immediately went over the shelf holding Wonwoo’s books, where he pulled them both out and tucked them under his arm before wedging himself into a corner to avoid human interaction. After looking around suspiciously, he pulled out the elf book, staring down at it’s pale green-gold cover. 

Seungkwan hefted it in his hands. It wasn’t the thickest book, actually it was quite slim, but Seungkwan had a feeling there was something more to it. Something about the book just felt...magical.

Seungkwan cringed at himself, but he opened the book anyway, scanning the first page.

“Dedicated to a friend from long ago,” Seungkwan read aloud, raising an eyebrow. Who might that have been?

The question left his mind when he looked lower, and he saw strange symbols scrawled across the page, slender and spiky. Seungkwan frowned down at the symbols, wondering what they were. Were they from another language? They probably were, and he hoped he’d find an alphabet inside.

He found himself completely and utterly immersed in the book. Long hours went by as he shifted from position to position, never taking his eyes off of the page. Who knew mythology could sound so interesting and so...real? The way Wonwoo phrased made it seem as though he’d actually gone and met an elf or two, actually had a conversation with them.

And the more he read, the more Seungkwan wondered. Just what was reality and what was fantasy? He didn’t know anymore; the line between fake and real was blurring and subconsciously Seungkwan found himself more inclined to believe Wonwoo’s strange words. It all just seemed so scarily scientific, like he’d been there before.

It was almost 11 by the time he finished the book, and though his eyes were drooping and it was pitch-black outside, he couldn’t bring himself to go to sleep. It was just too interesting. Once he was finished with the elf book, he picked up the one about the fae and dived into it with eager enthusiasm, practically shoving his nose into the pages and scanning them with what was almost a hunger. How did Wonwoo learn so much?

And more importantly...was any of it real? 

Seungkwan wanted to believe it was real. He wanted to know if there really were things like elves and fae and...and sirens.

Sirens. The head in the water. What if they were real?

If they were, Seungkwan didn’t know what he would do. But he was curious. What if Wonwoo could lead him to a siren? Would he?

So many questions swirled around in Seungkwan’s head that he didn’t notice his eyes drooping and his head nodding down onto the book. It was open to a page about crystals and magical flowers, describing how some faeries would use the flowers to perform magical spells and the crystals as enhancers. Overall some very interesting stuff.

Seungkwan wanted to stay awake to read it, but as he forced himself to sit up and blinked a couple times, he suddenly noticed just how late it was. Slightly surprised, he yawned widely and stood up, sliding the books back onto the shelf and making sure it looked like no one had touched them.

As he walked back to his room, he thought absently to himself about the thing in the water. What was it? And why had Joshua’s reaction been so severe? What had he done out on the pier?

He had a lot of questions, but no answers, and it was with an unsatisfied heart that he flopped onto his bed and instantly fell into a restless sleep.

Well, at least he’d be free tomorrow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry this is so boring I promise it'll amp up later I just needed a sort of filler chapter


	12. Oh Wait, You Can Talk??

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hansol and Minghao finally ask the big question. Out loud too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We finally get to the good stuff :3

A few days after the tests in the weird, humming tube, Hansol found himself face-to-face with a very curious Seungcheol, who was trying to find out more about sirens using strictly yes or no questions. 

It was getting more and more difficult for Seungcheol to get his questions across. When they’d exhausted all the easy questions, getting into details was harder, and, with his earbuds in, his voice was steadily getting louder as his frustration increased.

Oddly enough, Jun was having an easier time conversing with Minghao. Hansol never thought it would be possible, but Minghao was remaining rather civilized as he nodded or shook his head to Jun’s mimed questions.

But, well, Hansol was having problems, and that was the big thing.

“Just take your ear-thingies out!” he finally yelled, gesturing at his ears wildly. Seungcheol, who’d looked seconds away from jumping into the tank to drown himself, suddenly deflated, and in turn Hansol sunk down up to his nose, a lot confused and a little disappointed. 

“...You know I can’t do that,” Seungcheol mumbled, looking a little sad himself. Hansol sighed.

“I know, because you don’t trust either of us,” Hansol clicked under his breath, and Seungcheol gave him a confused look, hand instinctively rising to clear his ears before, with what looked like a conscious effort, he stopped himself, sitting back on his heels and looking incredibly troubled. Hansol reached up to pat his weird leg-joint-thing and Seungcheol jolted away.

Hansol sighed again. He knew Seungcheol didn’t trust him, and he didn’t fully trust any of the Land-Walkers either, but...half of him sort of wanted to get there. He didn’t know why, but Seungcheol and Jun exuded weird “you-can-trust-me-I’m-a-good-person” vibes that Hansol sort of wanted to test. 

Not to mention Mingyu and Seokmin, who he’d been introduced to, were quite the same. Seokmin was a lot like Soonyoung in the way that he was the Land-Walker equivalent of a ball of sunshine, and Mingyu was kind of clumsy and awkward and endearing with his sharp canines and soft grins. Hansol wanted to have conversations with them. He knew how to speak the Land-Walker language after all, why not put it to the test? 

Jeonghan would want him to try. God, he missed Jeonghan. And Jihoon, and Soonyoung, and Chan. At least he had Minghao, but he still couldn’t help but feel kind of lonely. There was a little guilt alongside the loneliness, but that couldn’t be helped. 

Well, if he ever wanted a chance to go home, he had to get at least one of the Land-Walkers to trust him enough to let him speak and hopefully ask to go home. 

Problem was, he had no idea how to do that. Seungcheol, Jun, Mingyu, and Seokmin, as tempted as they looked, had a surprising amount of restraint when it came to him and Minghao. He was almost kind of impressed at their willpower.

Almost. Instead it just kinda made him frustrated. But if anything, Hansol could be patient. It was a weird part of his nature to be curious but willing to be slow, watching sea snails and starfish crawl along the seafloor because the way they moved utterly fascinated him.

He could be patient, so he waited. He waited for Seungcheol to calm himself down a little, until he didn’t look so visibly annoyed at his own inability to put a question across. He continued to look frustrated for a few seconds, then sighed.

“Y’know, I’m getting real tempted to let you talk. But you and I both know that I can’t do that, and I’m sorry for that. I’m also sorry I can’t ask you anything more interesting than a yes or no question. It’s getting boring for me too.” He offered a slightly rueful grin and Hansol had it in him to smile back a little, which seemed to make Seungcheol quite happy, if the way his eyes lit up said anything.

“Y’know, for sirens you and Minghao don’t seem so bad. You act so...human. I mean, considering you’re literally half human, that makes sense, I guess, but still.” Jun had, after much confusing miming, explained that the Land-Walkers called themselves “humans”, which Hansol thought was kind of dumb. That didn’t tell him what they were; Land-Walker was a much more to-the-point title. 

“I’m curious though, are there more of you? You two seem really close,” Seungcheol continued curiously, leaning back on his hands.

Hansol didn’t move for a second. Should he say yes and risk the safety of his family? Should he say no and betray the kindling trust between them? It was almost an impossible question.

But he nodded anyway, just barely enough to be noticed. Seungcheol’s eyes widened.

“Really? That’s cool. Do you guys have like, different species or races or anything?” Hansol shook his head. “Interesting. I’ll tell Jun that. Can you spell their names?” Even if he could, Hansol wouldn’t go that far. He shook his head again. Seungcheol just nodded, looking up at the ceiling. For a second, both of them were silent, then Seungcheol looked back down at him. Hansol wondered what he was thinking.

“Is he being weird and asking weird questions again?” Minghao muttered, coming up behind him.

“Sort of? He wants to know about other sirens.”

“Don’t tell him,” Minghao said instantly, but Hansol rolled his eyes.

“Relax, I was vague. Besides, I can’t spell their names anyway,” he huffed, but Minghao squinted distrustfully at Seungcheol, who simply watched him with big, dark eyes.

“...I prefer Jun. He’s prettier,” Minghao mumbled, and Hansol grinned a little.

“You seriously only like him better because he’s prettier?” he chuckled, and Minghao glared at him.

“Is that bad? If they could breathe underwater I would keep him as part of my shiny things collection. He has a nice face, admit it.” He put his hands on his hips and Hansol couldn’t help but laugh.

“I don’t know, Mingyu’s pretty easy on the eyes,” he teased, and Minghao turned his nose up.

“Jun in the prettiest. I defend my choice.” Hansol laughed again, shaking his head in a fond way. Minghao’s eye for pretty things, which apparently included Jun, would never fail to amuse him.

“Looks like someone’s in _love_ ~” he cooed, and got a slap to the arm for it. He didn’t regret his words, and he only giggled as Minghao swam down to pout amongst the reeds.

“...What the heck was that about?” Seungcheol’s voice pushed him out of his teasing snickers. He couldn’t help but give the Land-Walker a flat look; he couldn’t exactly explain.

“Oh, right,” Seungcheol sighed, hitting his forehead with his palm. Hansol never got why they did that, but it was very amusing to watch. He guessed it was some kind of physical way to express exasperation.

His amusement sobered when Seungcheol gave him a very searching kind of look, one he returned with shy wariness. Just what was going on inside that Land-Walker’s head?

However, before he could make a suitably questioning expression, Seungcheol shook himself a little, standing up abruptly.

“I’ll go tell Jun what you told me. See ya, Hansol,” he mumbled, sounding incredibly distracted. Raising an eyebrow, Hansol nodded to him, more confused than ever. Land-Walkers were so strange.

* * *

Several hours later, when it had gotten pretty late and almost everyone had gone home, Hansol was lounging on his back on the sand, eyes half-lidded as he stared up at the ceiling through the clear lid of his tank. It was getting quite boring, to be in the tank, and though he had Minghao, he was still rather lethargic in the lack of entertainment. He just wanted to have a normal conversation with one of the Land-Walkers, was that too much to ask?

He looked over when Minghao began humming quietly to himself, braiding a few lengths of seaweed together and looking distant. Hansol closed his eyes and let out a contented sigh; he had no trouble admitting Minghao’s voice was nicer than his (for some reason holding a tune was kind of hard for him. He could only hit the low notes), so he just shut up and listened.

It was dark outside the tank, but Hansol didn’t feel sleepy. He liked nighttime more than the day, where everything was quiet and peaceful and filled with the sounds of his family singing to each other, soft tunes made up on the spot. Jeonghan and Jihoon would take the melody, strong and clear, and Soonyoung and Minghao would sing a harmony, lovely in it’s own right. He himself would listen most of the time, occasionally pitching in with a deeper note if he so wished. He missed it.

He wondered if he would ever see his home again. He hoped so.

“Gimme a c2 or something low and hold it,” Minghao suddenly mumbled, and Hansol blinked his eyes open, thinking for a second before humming softly. Minghao hummed the same note a few octaves higher before diverging off into something else. Hansol stuck to the low notes, and though he may not have been the best singer for a siren he still thought he was ok. The others never made fun of his voice anyway.

Eventually, Minghao petered off into silence, letting Hansol’s deeper voice vibrate through the water for a minute or two before the younger also fell quiet. For a while, there was no sound other than the whir of something in the floor of the tank they couldn’t see.

Then something- or someone, rather- tapped on the lid of their tank. A little startled, they both looked up to see Jun’s wide-eyed, starstruck face, lips slightly parted.

“Why’s he still awake?” Minghao clicked, sounding a little exasperated. Hansol gave an offhanded shrug after sitting up.

“...You think he heard us singing?” he asked hesitantly, and Minghao’s expression darkened a little.

“...That could be dangerous. For all of us,” he huffed, but he straightened up anyway and Hansol did the same. “Let’s go make sure he isn’t gonna chuck himself in the tank to hear our songs,” he sighed, but Hansol could hear a hint of something...something else in his tone, something Hansol raised an eyebrow at.

Jun had raised the lid of the tank by the time they got to the top, and he was leaning dangerously close to the water. Hansol had a sudden strong urge to push him back onto solid ground. He and Minghao shared a look before poking their heads out of the water warily, looking up at a dazed Jun.

“You have- you have really pretty voices,” Jun whispered, and with a small jolt Hansol realized he wasn’t wearing earbuds. 

He had a chance. A chance to try and ask for their freedom. 

“Should I talk to him?” Hansol clicked to Minghao, who gave Jun a narrow-eyed look before nodding slowly. Hansol was going to take that chance. He took a slow, deep breath, raising himself out of the water a little bit but staying a good distance from the lip of the tank; he might have been a little rusty at the Land-Walker language but damn if he wasn’t going to try.

“Jun,” he began slowly, the strange, smooth syllables rolling off of his tongue, nothing like the sharp hiss-click-purr noises of the siren language, “snap out of it.”

“Jun! What are you doing?! Get down from there!!” Seungcheol’s loud, worried voice made all three of them jump, and Jun blinked, the haziness clearing from his eyes as he scrambled back from the edge of the tank, breathing heavily. Hansol and Minghao shrunk a little in the water, but didn’t go back to the bottom.

“We’re not gonna sing or scream, we promise,” Hansol said quickly, the words strange but fun to say aloud. “Promise,” he repeated softly, and even though Minghao probably couldn’t understand him, he nodded agreement. Jun’s eyes widened farther than seemed possible, and Hansol was kind of worried that he would start hyperventilating.

“Holy- holy shit,” Jun mumbled breathlessly, voice a few octaves higher than normal. “Holy shit, you can talk.”

“What was that? Jun, do you have your earbuds in? Jun??” Seungcheol definitely sounded worried, and Hansol blinked. Seungcheol seemed like a reasonable man. Maybe he could talk to Seungcheol.

So he swam slowly to the edge of the tank, several feet away from Jun so as not to startle, him, and hoisted his arms up on the edge.

“Seungcheol?” he called hesitantly, waiting for a response. For a long, tense few moments, there was silence, and Hansol wondered if Seungcheol hadn’t heard him. “I won’t sing. I promise. I just wanna talk.” Again, silence. Then, footsteps, then the telltale sound of the platform rising and moving up. Several feet away, Jun kept staring at him and Minghao, wide-eyed and dead-still.

“You can talk,” Jun mumbled again, still sounding kind of strained. Hansol nodded warily, giving him a slightly worried look.

“Yes, I can,” he said carefully, “Minghao can’t. Not well, anyway.” To that, Jun just nodded several times, looking oddly flustered as he sent Minghao a glance that was returned with an even stare. They both looked over, however, when Seungcheol came stumbling onto the platform, just as wide-eyed as Jun.

“You talk,” he said dumbly. Hansol nodded again.

“I thought that had been established…?” he said tentatively, aiming for humor to maybe lessen the tension, but Seungcheol just shook his head in amazement.

“Ask him if we can go home,” Minghao clicked suddenly, in a voice of odd softness. Hansol nodded, but suddenly both of the Land-Walkers were looking serious.

“This is like, a big no-no. Jun shouldn’t even still be here, technically,” Seungcheol said slowly, and Hansol and Minghao exchanged a glance. “So if you’re gonna talk to us, you better promise not to do anything, or we’re gonna put you in different tanks, ok?” His voice was more of a warning than a threat, but both of the sirens nodded quickly anyway. Seungcheol and Jun stared at them for a moment before deflating. Seungcheol sank down to sit next to Jun, and his eyes filled with curiosity.

“So you really can speak our language,” he chuckled in a voice of childlike wonder. Hansol nodded again. “How?”

“I was taught by someone close to me,” Hansol replied slowly, picking out his words carefully. He could not give away any more of his family. Minghao would murder him. Thankfully, Jun and Seungcheol just nodded thoughtfully, still looking a little awed.

“That’s incredible,” Jun said quietly, shaking his head again in awe. “I’ve never heard of anything like that. The closest anyone’s gotten is sign language with gorillas but for us to discover something like _this_ …”

“...What’s a gorilla?” Both Jun and Seungcheol blinked at him for a second, looking concerned, then they both burst out laughing. Jun pulled out a slim, flat, palm-sized rectangle from his pocket and tapped at it with his thumbs for a few moments before turning it so Hansol and Minghao could see it.

“...God, that thing’s hideous,” Minghao clicked under his breath. Hansol snorted.

“Minghao says it’s ugly. And what is this? Can I hold it?” he held both of his hands out for the flat little rectangle, and, after a second or two of hesitation Jun handed it to him.

“It’s called a phone. And be careful, it’s not waterproof…”

“Oh, it does stuff,” Hansol hummed curiously, showing Minghao as he tapped randomly at the screen and got a new image.

“That’s...weird,” Minghao muttered, poking at the screen with a sharp nail. “And what good is it if it can’t be used underwater? Seems flimsy. I could break it in half.”

“I’m pretty sure Jun wouldn’t be happy with that,” Hansol chuckled in a hissing purr, handing the “phone” back to Jun, who looked mildly relieved to have it back in his own hands. There was an awkward silence for a couple seconds.

“...How’s your head?” Hansol finally asked, leaning his arms on the edge of the tank. He knew that sometimes it took a little bit to clear one’s head from the dregs of a siren song, especially if it was on purpose. Heck, Jeonghan’s voice was so goddamn powerful that him singing with as much intention as possible left even the stubborn and stoic Jihoon glassy-eyed and trailing after him, lips parted and mind blank. Even him just _talking_ in a sweet voice made Hansol twice as inclined to do what he asked. Jeonghan was honestly kind of scary in that aspect.

“I’m- I’m ok, yeah,” Jun mumbled after a second, blinking and shaking his head aggressively. Seungcheol shot him a confused, mildly concerned look. Hansol nodded slowly.

“...Ask, please,” Minghao clicked softly, and the two sirens exchanged a glance. Hansol could see the distress and homesickness in Minghao’s eyes and he sure he looked the same way.

So he took a deep breath and looked up at the two Land-Walkers, who were watching him warily. He had no idea if his words would work or not, but he had to try. He had to.

“...We want to go home.”


	13. Change Of Mind

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seungcheol tries to recruit Seunghyun to help, and he doesn't really know if it goes so well. On the bright side, Mingyu and Seokmin meet the sirens!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize in advance this is  
> So boring

Hearing those words come out of Hansol’s mouth, seeing both him and Minghao look rather desperate for him to say they could go home...it was jarring, to say the least. Seungcheol didn’t know what to think anymore, and he doubted Jun did either; the other man looked just as shocked as he was.

Weirdly enough, the pretty face of the man from the beach flickered through his mind. He couldn’t bring up a name, but he knew the man had been ethereally beautiful. 

“I- we-” Seungcheol couldn’t finish; he didn’t know what to say that would console them. His heart felt heavy and it got worse the longer he stayed silent, and the longer he stayed silent, the more the hope drained from the two sirens’ eyes. Their eyes, their emotions, they were so...human-like. Seungcheol felt like he’d kicked a puppy.

“...We can go home, right?” Hansol asked, desperation lacing his strange voice. He had a voice on the deeper side, though also slightly childish. He had an accent too; he emphasized consonants and hard sounds, similar to the clicking way he spoke underwater. 

Seungcheol wanted so badly to say yes. He wanted to make sure they got back to the ocean safe and sound.

But if he was being truthful, he didn’t know himself. Whenever they usually encountered a new species, they would keep it for a while to study it, observe it, maybe then set it free once they’d gathered enough information.

But none of them had spoken. None of them had such eyes of liquid intelligence and pained desperation. None of them had gotten close to displaying such heart-wrenching emotions. It was so jarring, so different and so similar at the same time, that Seungcheol felt like someone had tugged the whole world out from under his feet.

“... _Right_?” It was that one whispered word, so scared and so hopeful and so profoundly pleading, that made Seungcheol break.

“I’ll- I’ll see what I can do,” he stammered, biting back a confident _yes_. He knew just setting them free would cause an uproar, and he wanted to avoid that. Especially with Seungri.

“...So no,” Hansol mumbled, sinking down into the water until his nose touched it. Minghao started to look mad and all sorts of warning bells flashed in Seungcheol’s mind. Minghao wouldn’t sing, right? He promised.

He didn’t sing. Instead he hoisted himself onto the edge of the tank, causing Jun to scramble backwards, and spit a caustic stream of hissing and clicking that sounded very violent even to their human ears.

“You tell ‘em, Hao,” Hansol said dully in their language, not looking very amused. “He’s not happy,” he added unnecessarily.

“We- we can see,” Seungcheol mumbled, moving to crouch as Minghao pulled himself further out of the tank, hissing and baring needle sharp fangs, looking for all intents and purposes like a snake about to strike. “And- and can you tell him to calm down? Please?” Hansol sighed, hiss-clicking something that made Minghao snap his mouth shut but not move back. They had a mini-argument comprised of mostly Minghao hissing his brains out in different inflections, while Hansol mostly clicked and made weird purring noises in the back of his throat.

The fear had fled from Jun’s eyes, turning to amazement, and Seungcheol could see his fingers twitching, eager to write something down. He would have laughed had he not been mildly terrified.

Eventually, Minghao finally backed off, slipping into the water with one last warning hiss. Jun still looked slightly entranced.

There was silence for a while. None of them spoke and Seungcheol doubted any of them knew what to say.

“Well, if we can’t go…” Hansol began in a slow sigh, moving to sink back into the water. There was defeat in his eyes, turning them from golden brown to a kind of murky mud color. Minghao’s jet-black eyes, rimmed with white around the pupil in the most fascinating way, were angry, but also a little afraid. Seungcheol felt his heart squeeze.

“Wa-wait,” Seungcheol said suddenly, moving to the edge of the tank, kneeling precariously. If he moved just a little too much, he’d fall in and he didn’t want to find out what would happen if he fell. Thankfully, Jun must have noticed this, because a hand gripped the back of his shirt tightly.

“I-I’ll talk to the higher-ups,” he said quickly, cringing inwardly at the thought of facing Seungri. “Maybe we can just tag you and let you go.”

“...Tag?” Hansol’s head tilt was a little relieving, since he no longer looked so darn sad.

“It just means we put like, a tracker on you so we can note down your movements in the open ocean,” he explained. Hansol frowned further.

“Why? It’s not like we’re gonna be coming back. We don’t want you following us either. That would be like us stalking you.”

...He had a good point. Seungcheol sat back with a sigh, running his hand over his face.

“Ok. I’ll...I’ll try my best. I don’t know if it’ll work, but I’ll try.”

“Me too,” Jun added softly, still looking a little bit out of it. 

“...Thank you.” Hansol’s face was dead serious, so was Minghao’s, and, with some trepidation, Seungcheol realized they were quite literally trusting him and Jun with their freedom. That was...not something he could take lightly. 

Minghao hissing made both of the humans look over at him, and Hansol snorted as he listened, though the sound was dry.

“He says if you free us then he won’t make your ears bleed.” Seungcheol shivered at the prospect. Then he looked at Jun, whose eyes were still just a tiny bit glazed over. The pretty man from the beach popped up into his mind again, and he looked back down at Hansol.

“...Were you guys singing before I came up here?” he asked tentatively, and Hansol nodded. 

“Sorry if it messed with your head,” he said mildly, blinking at Jun. “Sometimes our songs do that to people.”

You say that like you’ve done this to someone before,” Seungcheol huffed nervously, and Hansol gave him a flat smile.

“Well, if you ever encounter a siren with a more powerful voice than yours, who do you think’s gonna come out on top?” he shrugged, and Seungcheol blinked.

“There are more powerful sirens in this area?” His brow furrowed when something flickered over Hansol’s face, like he’d overshared.

“...I’ve met more powerful sirens, not necessarily in this part of the ocean,” he said carefully, and Seungcheol wondered just how much was truth and how much was made up. “The after-effects are the same either way; we get kind of disoriented for a bit. Nothing bad happens though,” he added, and Seungcheol let out a quiet breath of relief.

He wanted to ask Hansol about the beautiful siren he’d seen in The Drop. His face was completely and utterly ingrained into his memory, and he knew he could never forget his voice.

“Do you...know another siren who might live around here? Very pretty, kind of feminine, long brown hair? Red scales?” he asked slowly, hesitantly, looking down at his feet.

It took Hansol just a split second too long to answer.

“No, I only know Minghao,” he mumbled, sinking into the water again with a sort of defensive, evasive aura about him. Seungcheol frowned; he should have known better than to try and wheedle information out of them when they so clearly didn’t trust him or Jun.

Still, he took another deep breath, holding it for a second before lifting his gaze to meet Hansol’s.

“I’ll do my best,” he said quietly, a solemn promise. Hansol nodded, and Seungcheol couldn’t help but feel like he’d taken on an impossible task.

But he had to try.

* * *

Saying he was intimidated by Seungri would be a lie. He was quite terrified of the man. He respected Seungri, yes, as a scientist and former policeman, but he just had an off-putting aura that Seungcheol knew pretty much no one but Seunghyun liked (he still wondered how those two became friends).

But he’d made a promise. A promise to two beings who trusted him enough to literally take them home. The thought sobered him greatly, and he couldn’t help but feel like he’d sort of...kidnapped them, even if he wasn’t the one who’d caught them in the first place. 

It was a heavy feeling in the middle of his chest that never really went away. He knew Jun felt it too; the man was more...subdued than usual. Mingyu and Seokmin noticed, but said nothing about it, and Seungcheol wondered if he could introduce the two to Hansol and Minghao as well. Hopefully he would be able to; Seokmin was incapable of _not_ being friends with someone, no matter their species. 

But first, he had to deal with Seungri. No one else in the lab knew about the sirens except for him and his team, so he couldn’t exactly announce the idea at some kind of company-wide meeting, but he didn’t want to face Seungri alone. Maybe he could talk to Seunghyun…?

Maybe that would work. Seunghyun was, above all things, a reasonable (and rather cheerful) man, and if Seungcheol played his cards right, logic would be his friend. Well, logic and appealing to emotional weaknesses. 

So he grabbed Jun first. For moral support.

“You’re gonna help me, right?” he asked quietly, and Jun nodded a lot quicker and more emphatically than Seungcheol expected, but hey, he wasn’t complaining.

“We should tell Mingyu and Seokmin. I know they’ll help us too,” Jun reasoned, and Seungcheol paused.

“...Alright, fine. But we gotta make it quick. I wanna do this tonight or tomorrow, preferably,” he sighed, peering around the lab for a giant of a puppy and a literal drop of sunshine.

* * *

“...They can _what_?” 

“They can talk, Mingyu, in our language. Well, Hansol can,” Seungcheol hissed, slapping a hand over the younger’s mouth. Mingyu’s tendency to repeat things when he was surprised was not going to help them stay covert. “And- and...they want to go home.”

Seokmin looked oddly mortified, and for a second Seungcheol was rather confused.

“...So we just- we just kidnapped them like that without- without even knowing anything about them?” he whispered, eyes wider than Seungcheol would have thought possible. Still, he shrugged awkwardly, since it was kind of true. 

“...Oh,” Seokmin mumbled, very softly. Seungcheol put a hand on his shoulder.

“I’m gonna talk to Seunghyun and try to get him to convince Seungri to let this whole project go. I don’t- Detaining sentient creatures isn’t on my agenda anymore than yours. Hopefully I can get Seunghyun on my side,” he said firmly, and Seokmin nodded.

“I’ll help. Mingyu?” Both of them turned to look at the younger, who nodded as well, though he looked a little more hesitant.

“Seungri’s...influential though,” he said carefully, and Seungcheol sighed.

“I know; that’s the problem. And there’s no guarantee he’ll stay quiet about this research. If people find out sirens exist, then…”

“Then bad things will undoubtedly happen,” Jun huffed darkly, coming up behind Seokmin and making him jump. “I snuck a quick chat with Hansol when no one was around and he agreed to talk to you two,” he added, nodding his head at Seokmin and Mingyu, who started to look surprised.

“Who’s talking to who?” They all jumped at Daesung’s curious voice, and Jun whirled around quickly, a convincing grin on his face that surprised even Seungcheol.

“Oh, some friends of mine are coming down and I agreed to introduce them Seokmin and Mingyu,” he lied easily, and, thankfully, the younger two nodded. Daesung gave them a strange look but nodded, walking off again. Seungcheol let out a breath he hadn’t known he was holding. 

“We can’t afford to turn back now, I guess,” Seungcheol mumbled, shaking his head. Jun’s grin instantly fell back into tired lines.

“No, we can’t,” he agreed, and Seokmin and Mingyu exchanged a look.

“...So when should we talk?”

* * *

They waited three days to shake off any possible suspicion. Seungcheol could tell all of them were tense- Jun tapped his fingers against whatever his hand was resting on; Seokmin’s smile was a little smaller than normal; Mingyu jumped at loud noises; Hansol and Minghao thrashed their tails through the water more often.

He himself was all wound-up, shoulders tight and hands jittery. He couldn’t shake the feeling that something was going to happen, even if they hadn’t done anything. Yet. But he had to at least try. He promised Hansol and Minghao he’d try, so he had to try.

So, when everyone goes home, Seungcheol, Jun, Mingyu, and Seokmin stay, explaining that they’d simply run some night tests to experiment. Knowing those four were close friends, no one said anything about it, which relieved Seungcheol. A lot.

“I can’t believe I’m really gonna do this,” Mingyu muttered as Seungcheol raised the lid of the tank. Seokmin beside him hummed agreement, and Jun and Seungcheol shared an amused sort of grimace. 

“Well, believe it, ‘cause Hansol can talk,” Jun said dryly, crouching by the lip of the tank and settling onto his knees.

When the lid opened fully, Hansol and Minghao were already there, eyes wary but also curious.

“Hi,” was the first thing he said, and Mingyu and Seokmin’s eyes opened comically wide.

“Hey there,” Seungcheol said quickly, sitting down next to Jun. “Mingyu and Seokmin,” he introduced briefly, gesturing to them respectively. Hansol and Minghao nodded.

“You- you can talk. You can actually talk,” Mingyu said dumbly, and Hansol nodded. Seungcheol snickered.

“Yes, I can,” Hansol hummed, setting his arms on the lip of the tank. He seemed to be waiting for them to say something.

“Mingyu, Seokmin, you’ll help us, right?” Seungcheol asked quickly, and they nodded, hesitantly lowering themselves to sit.

“I promise I won’t sing. Minghao won’t either. We just want to go home,” Hansol said quietly, and their eyes, if possible, went wider. Seungcheol and Jun nodded.

“We- it isn’t right to keep them here,” Jun added, and Seokmin and Mingyu exchanged a glance. 

“Please,” Minghao said suddenly, eyes far more vulnerable than Seungcheol expected them to ever be. He looked more afraid than three days ago, desperate in a way that was heart-wrenching.

“I- I thought he couldn’t talk,” Jun stammered, looking surprised. Hansol just hummed softly.

“He knows a little bit. Mostly swear words,” he chuckled dryly. Seungcheol huffed out a stunned laugh.

“Yeah, ok, we’re helping,” Seokmin put in suddenly, sounding incredibly decisive. Mingyu nodded.

“Yeah. We’ll help. With anything. We’re gonna get you guys back home.” He sounded so sure, and for a second Seungcheol wanted to just cart them back to the ocean right there and then, but then he remembered Seungri and he shivered.

“We’ll try,” he amended hesitantly, and Minghao and Hansol’s sharp eyes turned to him. He felt very pinned beneath their gazes.

“You’ll try,” Hansol repeated tonelessly, eyes flat.

“We can’t just dump you back in the ocean, no matter how much we want to,” Jun put in, saving Seungcheol from their unreadable stares. “We have to convince Seungri that keeping you here isn’t right. Because it isn’t.”

“And if you don’t manage to convince him?” Hansol prompted, raising an eyebrow. Seungcheol took in an uneasy breath. Even he didn’t know what would happen if things went wrong. Maybe Seungri would do something about the sirens, and then Seungcheol wouldn’t have access to them anymore. 

“Then...then we’ll bust you out of here anyway,” he finally settled on saying. All three of the other humans gave him incredulous looks, but he kept his eyes on Hansol, whose gaze was guarded.

“...Thank you,” Hansol said slowly, as though he didn’t quite believe him. Seungcheol offered a thin smile in return.

What had he just done.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I promise y'all will get that good ol' Seungcheol-Seungri confrontation later !!


	14. Reveal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seungkwan is starting to think he's bitten off way, WAY more than he can chew.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heheheh you're finally getting progress on Joshua

The moment Seungkwan was allowed to step foot outside the house, he was prepared to go find Joshua and Wonwoo and interrogate them for information and news as to what had happened over his past week or so of imprisonment.

But lucky him, his mother gave him a guard dog. A tall, handsome young man by the name of Choi Minho, whom Seungkwan actually liked a fair amount. However, even if Minho was pleasant company, he didn’t want the older man around him 24/7.

“I’m old enough to walk around town by myself, Minho,” he whined, walking backwards to huff at him. Minho gave him a kind of half tired, half amused smile.

“I know, sir, but if your mother found out then both of us would most certainly be in a lot of trouble.” Seungkwan pouted at that.

“Call me Seungkwan. You’re older than me and that’s weird. And c’mon, what she doesn’t know won’t hurt her,” he wheedled, and Minho gave him a good-natured eye roll, shaking his head and not deigning to give him a verbal response. Seungkwan sighed, turning around to walk properly before he ran into someone.

He couldn’t go see Joshua and Wonwoo, not with Minho tailing him. However, he had the advantage of knowing the town like the back of his hand. If he ran, he could use the element of surprise and just slip away, but...if that didn’t work then he’d probably never be let out of the house again.

“If you bolt, you know I’m faster than you,” Minho said suddenly, as though reading his thoughts. Seungkwan thought he sounded insufferably amused.

“I hate you,” he mumbled, no real malice in his voice. Minho laughed, clapping his shoulder.

“Of course you do. Wanna get coffee?”

For all intents and purposes, Seungkwan thought it looked like he was just hanging out with a friend. A watchful, slightly overprotective friend, but just a friend. No one would come and suddenly rescue him from his mother’s guard dog. Didn’t stop him from wishing though. 

“Do tell, what caused you to get put under house arrest anyway? I’m quite curious,” Minho chuckled, leaning back in his seat. Seungkwan rolled his eyes.

“All I did was stay out a little bit later than normal, which is dumb. I’m not stupid and I’m friends with literally everyone in this town. I doubt any of them want to attack me,” he huffed, gesturing to the people in the cafe. As if to prove his point, a few people waved back. “See?”

“Where’d you go?” Minho hummed curiously, eyes moving to the window. He’d always been a people-watcher.

“...To the lighthouse. Wanted to explore,” Seungkwan said casually, feeling it was ok to tell him the truth. Minho was a trustworthy man, if not a bit curious about anything and everything. 

Minho’s eyebrows raised comically. “The lighthouse? Why over there? There’s nothing interesting and people say it’s haunted.” Seungkwan blinked, then Joshua’s words floated through his head and out his mouth before he could stop them.

“After a while, you learn to check and see if something is scary, before letting it scare you,” he said carefully, and Minho gave him a slightly strange look. Seungkwan just shrugged.

“...Interesting choice of words,” Minho said eventually, going back to his coffee. Seungkwan hummed and shrugged again, looking down at his own cup.

“Did you see anything cool?” Minho prompted, and Seungkwan’s mind shot back to the dark lump in the water, back to Joshua standing out on the pier, hand outstretched.

“...Not really. ‘S just super dusty and there’s spiderwebs everywhere.” He waved a hand around dismissively, and Minho nodded.

“Sounds fun,” he chuckled dryly, and Seungkwan snorted, following the older man’s gaze out the window. He’d never really been much of a people-watcher, he preferred to go interact, but he didn’t want to talk to anyone with Minho hovering over his shoulder.

His eyes widened when they fell upon a familiar face. Wonwoo, smiling as he walked and talked next to a tall, handsome man who was waving his hands around while describing something. Seungkwan shot up in his seat, staring at them, ignoring Minho’s curious noise.

Seungkwan squinted at Wonwoo, who had raised a sweater paw-covered hand while he laughed, nose scrunched up, and unless Seungkwan was blind, he was...blushing a little bit?

Oh, Jeon Wonwoo had a _lot_ of explaining to do. Wonwoo, cryptic, awkward Wonwoo, who couldn’t finish three sentences without adding a half-baked “y’know?” to the end, looking almost _adoringly_ up at the tall man, who Seungkwan didn’t know, which was surprising. Was he from out of town?

He was cut off from staring when Minho waved a hand in front of his face. “What’cha starin’ at?” The older man followed his gaze, frowning, and Seungkwan shook his head.

“No-nothing, just thought I saw someone I knew,” he stammered quickly, and Minho shot him a disbelieving look.

“You know everyone,” he pointed out. Thankfully, Seungkwan’s natural sass kicked in.

“I meant someone important who owes me an explanation on something,” he huffed, and Minho raised an eyebrow again. Seungkwan didn’t elaborate, too busy on peering at Wonwoo and his handsome companion as they disappeared down a side street.

He was going to interrogate Wonwoo when he got the chance. Unfortunately, he couldn’t do that with Minho with him, no matter how nice the older man was. 

“Let’s go to the beach,” he said suddenly, standing up abruptly. Minho blinked at him as he moved, surprised.

“H-hey, come back-!” Seungkwan didn’t bother to slow down, threading through the crowd with practiced ease. He was good at slipping through small spaces, between people, under fences, all of that. 

“Forgive me, Minho,” he mumbled under his breath, dipping into an alleyway as the older man ran past, looking harried and worried. Hopefully he’d just give up and go home and not tell his mother. 

He stayed in that little alleyway until he knew Minho had passed, and he stood from his crouch, looking around surreptitiously. He had to find Wonwoo. Hopefully Joshua too but who knew where that mysterious man was? 

Taking a deep breath, he poked his head out of the alley, looking around for two tall figures. He didn’t see anyone at first, but then, out of the corner of his eye, he saw a familiar head of dark brown hair. There!

He sprinted over quickly, ducking under arms and between bodies, just barely managing to avoid being squished by a loose fishing cart. Then, as he was about to reach out to grab Wonwoo’s sleeve, he paused. Should he interrupt? He didn’t know the man walking next to Wonwoo, but Seungkwan had an inkling that he might just look a little bit familiar. 

He ended up stepping back, tailing them for a little bit. Seungkwan thought Wonwoo looked disgustingly in love and he had no idea how to feel about it. Wonwoo always just seemed so...antisocial. Why now was he suddenly acting so friendly to this one tall dude? Granted, he was pretty handsome from what Seungkwan had seen of him earlier, but still, he didn’t seem that special…

Seungkwan decided to find out. Weirdly enough, they were going in the direction of the little book store on the hill, and Seungkwan felt disproportionately panicked.

“Wonwoo!” he called in the most friendly, casual voice he could, jogging up to the pair. Wonwoo paused to look at him, a slightly surprised smile on his face.

“Seungkwan! I haven’t seen you for a while,” he hummed, tilting his head to the side.

“Yeah, sorry, I got kind of caught up at home,” Seungkwan shrugged. Not completely a lie. “Who’s this?” He nodded at the handsome man, who, the longer he looked, the more familiar he seemed.

“Oh, right. Seungkwan, this is Kim Mingyu. Mingyu, Seungkwan. He works at the lab,” Wonwoo added, and there was a strange note in his voice, the way he emphasized his last words ever so slightly that put a seed of suspicion into Seungkwan’s heart. 

Still, here was someone who worked where he wanted to work!

“Hello, your highness,” Mingyu said politely, inclining his head. Seungkwan waved the display off; people treating him like royalty made him uncomfortable.

“Just Seungkwan is totally fine. Do you really work at the lab? _The_ SVT lab?” He couldn’t help the strain of excitement that slipped into his voice, but Mingyu’s grin was friendly.

“Yep! It’s been pretty...busy lately, but it’s fun,” he hummed, and, to Seungkwan’s immense surprise, Wonwoo wound an arm with Mingyu’s.

“Yeah, I thought it was pretty cool too. I was just thinking of bringing him to the book store to see if there were any good biology books he would recommend to me,” Wonwoo said in what was almost a sappy voice, sugared more than Seungkwan ever thought possible.

That’s when he knew something was off. Wonwoo would never act so...sweet with someone. Wonwoo wanted something from Mingyu, and Seungkwan had an inkling as to what it was. 

So he played along. Pulling a grin onto his face, he nodded, hoping he looked innocent.

“Can I come too? It’s been a while since I’ve been out and about. I hope I’m not interrupting anything~?” He couldn’t help but tease, and thankfully Wonwoo caught on to his acting and smiled back.

“I’m sure Gyu won’t mind, would you?” _Gyu_?? Ok, that was a bit much.

But it worked, if Mingyu’s slightly flustered grin said anything.

“Of- of course! Feel free,” he said quickly, eyes fixed on Wonwoo’s little smile, almost a pout but not quite. Seungkwan wanted to gag at the sweetness.

“Perfect,” Wonwoo said happily, tugging Mingyu’s arm with him. Seungkwan followed next to Wonwoo, who shot him a very discreet glance where his eyes turned serious and he gave a tiny nod. Seungkwan felt very proud indeed of noticing Wonwoo’s little scheme.

When they stepped inside, Mingyu looked a little surprised at the shop’s small size.

“Cozy,” he hummed, stepping over a stack of books by his feet.

“Yeah. It’s small and kind of out of the way but I like this place,” Wonwoo chuckled, but Seungkwan thought he sounded almost a tiny bit defensive; he knew the shop was Wonwoo’s baby. He resisted the urge to snicker.

“Wonwoo? Seungkwan? And...someone else.” Seungkwan looked over in mild surprise at the sound of Joshua’s soft voice, appearing from the corner of the room. The cat-eyed man stepped forward from the shadows and it almost looked like he’d been _part_ of them before, melting into the light like some kind of spirit. Seungkwan shivered.

“Oh, right, I forgot someone else works here,” Wonwoo said apologetically, though there was a new hint of excitement in his tone. “Joshua, this is Mingyu, from the lab. Mingyu, Joshua. He works here with me sometimes.”

“Nice to meet you,” Mingyu hummed, dipping his head even though he looked a little freaked out by Joshua’s sudden appearance. 

“...You too,” Joshua said eventually, giving Mingyu a thorough once-over that made the tall man visibly shudder. “Make yourself comfortable,” he said in his ever-serene voice. Seungkwan, not for the first time, wondered just who Joshua really was.

He blinked though, when Joshua gestured him over. He tried to look at Wonwoo, but he was busy sweet-talking Mingyu into...whatever it was he wanted. So he shrugged inwardly and made his way across the cluttered room to Joshua.

“I’m sure you’ve figured it out already, but we’re trying to uh, get some information, for lack of a better phrase. I just hope Wonwoo’s wiles are enough. I mean, the man looks smitten already. I almost feel bad,” he chuckled, and Seungkwan let out a slightly nervous laugh.

“Alright,” he said slowly, glancing over his shoulder.

“Leave it up to us. And whatever you do, whatever happens in Vegas stays in Vegas,” Joshua hummed cryptically, a smile scrunching up his cat-like eyes. Seungkwan blinked. What the heck did that mean? 

“...Ok,” he mumbled, and Joshua patted his shoulder in a vaguely parental way before sashaying off into the shadows, once again seeming to simply melt into them. Seungkwan shivered again.

Wanting to help (and also get his mind off of Joshua’s weirdness), he turned back to Mingyu and Wonwoo, the latter of whom was practically hanging off of his arm, eyes wide behind his round glasses. Despite his sweet smile, Seungkwan could tell he wanted nothing more than to kick Mingyu out, and he fought down a smirk.

He decided to help. He padded over, and he actually was pretty curious about the lab. If he wanted to work there, he should at least know some stuff about it, right?

“So tell me about the lab. What do you guys do? I wanna work there someday,” he said primly, unceremoniously throwing himself into their conversation. Wonwoo looked a little relieved.

“Well, it’s a lot of biology, of course, and we study new species whenever we find them. We found a pair of new deep-water fish and currently we’re doing most of our studies on them,” Mingyu said casually, eyes fixed on Wonwoo, who, in Seungkwan’s opinion, was layering the cute act on much too thick. But Mingyu seemed to like it, if the little flush high on his cheeks said anything.

“What kind of fish?” Wonwoo asked innocently, and, to Seungkwan’s surprise, Mingyu started to look a little nervous.

“Well, we aren’t exactly sure when genus it’s from; it’s kind of...unusual,” he offered, sounding a little reluctant.

“Oh? Maybe we have a book on it here. Describe it for me,” Joshua hummed, melting out of nowhere again and making both Seungkwan and Mingyu jump.

“It’s a little...confidential,” Mingyu said awkwardly, and Joshua hummed again, nodding once as he ran a finger along the spines of a row of books. 

“Nothing said here will leave this place,” Joshua said slowly, and Seungkwan frowned. The air felt heavy again, pulling at his chest like there was a presence inside his ribs. Mingyu could feel it too if the look on his face said anything.

“Sorry, I can’t-” His mumbled protest was cut off by a huff from Wonwoo, who leaned into him a little bit.

“C’mon, Gyu. Just a little hint? It’s just a fish, right? Can’t hurt to tell us,” he wheedled, but Mingyu started to look more and more uncomfortable. 

“S-sorry, I really can't, and I think I have to go now-”

“Sit. Stay.” Even Seungkwan went dead still at the sound of Joshua’s voice, no longer soft and serene, but sharp and edged with...power. He hardly dared to breathe as the cat-eyed man swept forward, mouth set in a hard line. He stopped in front of Mingyu’s chair, leaning down so they were roughly eye-level.

“You are going to tell me the truth, Kim Mingyu,” he said slowly, clearly, and the air felt even heavier, warmer, tingling with... _something_. Seungkwan wondered if he was dreaming.

“What are you hiding in that lab?” Joshua asked quietly, but it was less of a question and more of a demand for an answer. Mingyu was silent for several moments, eyes wide and mouth gaping open, then his gaze unfocused a little and he relaxed.

“Sirens. Two of them,” he said placidly, and Joshua’s eyes narrowed. It was then that he noticed Joshua’s eyes were glowing. _Glowing_. He could see it clearly through the dim light of the shop, a sort of gold-amber-brass like honey under the sun. 

Who the hell was Joshua? _What_ was he?

“Names,” Joshua ordered. Again, not a question.

“Hansol and Minghao,” Mingyu replied tonelessly, and Joshua leaned back slowly.

“...I see,” he hummed, and then he reached out and flicked Mingyu’s forehead. The tall man’s head lolled back, and for a second Seungkwan worried he was dead or something, but he caught the even rise and fall of Mingyu’s chest and relaxed a little.

Still. What had Joshua done?? How??

If possible, his eyes widened even more when Joshua flung a hand out, and all of the candles in the shop simultaneously lit at once. He looked angry for the first time ever, angry and troubled.

“So what now?” Wonwoo didn’t even look phased, and Seungkwan gaped at him and Joshua. How could he act so cool after what just happened?

Seungkwan heard a kind of weird, choked noise, and it must have come from him, because both of the other men’s gazes flicked to him. They didn’t seem too troubled about his presence, but Seungkwan felt very pinned beneath Joshua’s still-glowing eyes.

In fact, Joshua just smirked thinly.

“Grab a coat. We’re gonna go meet Jeonghan.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HEHEHEH


	15. Sing For Me?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hansol goes through a little bit of angst, and Jun has a surprising- and potentially dangerous- request.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hehehhe I'm sure y'all will like this one

“We’ll try.” Those two words, just those two, insignificant words, had punched a massive hole in Hansol’s confidence. He’d been so excited to get home, so sure that Seungcheol would let them go-

But then he had to go and say those two words. He didn’t understand. Why couldn’t they just be set free? What would they lose? He and Minghao weren’t animals to be studied, no matter if they were kept in tanks and experimented on in strange tubes.

It crushed him more than he wanted to admit. At that point, all he wanted to do was go home. Was that so much to ask? They were living creatures who could think and communicate for themselves; they had the right to be free. 

The homesickness was starting to get to Minghao too. His body was all long, sleek lines, but he looked even thinner than before, stretched taut like a piece of kelp about to snap. His cheeks were a little hollower than normal and Hansol was worried. If Minghao somehow got sick for real, then...then he didn’t know what he would do. Jihoon was the one with all the medical knowledge, not him.

So he did his best to stick to Minghao’s side no matter what, keeping a watchful eye on the slender siren. Minghao seemed to appreciate it, if his tired smiles were anything to go by. 

“At least we’re not alone,” he’d say softly late at night, face turned towards the lid of their tank.

 Hansol hated the word tank now. With a passion. It was starting to feel cramped and claustrophobic and Hansol _hated_ it. He wanted to smash the glass and get the hell out of this stupid lab. 

He just wanted to go home, but there was doubt, deep in his heart. Would Seungcheol be able to convince Seungri? He was scary and seemed powerful- neither Hansol nor Minghao liked him at all. Hopefully Seungcheol and Jun and Mingyu and Seokmin would be able to work something out.

But...what if it didn’t work? What if they never got to go home? It wouldn’t come to that, right? _Right_?

Hansol was reduced to empty hopes and void-like doubts that he could do nothing about. He just had to wait and see until one of the friendly Land-Walkers came back.

Hopefully, hopefully, they’d have some good news.

* * *

None of the Land-Walkers came back for the first few days. Seungcheol kept sending him looks that he couldn’t read, sort of hesitant and weird. Hansol didn’t know how to react to them, so he usually looked away. He _wanted_ to trust them, but...but that could prove to be dangerous. There was no telling what they would actually do. 

So he just had to put his faith in them. Seungcheol and Jun and Mingyu and Seokmin- they seemed nice, and Hansol liked them and he wanted to be able to call them his friends, but the stress of waiting for something to happen was wearing on his ability to do that. All he could do was _wait_ and it was unbearable.

Well, at least he had Minghao, who seemed to feel the same things he did, but more...aggressive. Hansol wasn’t really surprised when he watched Minghao tear up fish bones with weird viciousness, scattering the pieces once they became too small to break in half. 

He himself settled on sitting and waiting. He was patient, yes, but he could only be patient for so long. Minutes turned into hours and his patience waned, but he never moved. He just sat with his back pressed against the glass, pelvic fins fluttering uneasily. He just wanted to get back home.

But after a while, his hopes started dwindling.

“Minghao?” he asked softly, one day after Seungcheol had told him they were going to try. The other siren hummed roughly, running his fingers through his hair over and over again. “Do you...do you think we’re ever gonna get back home?”

Minghao’s reaction was almost scary. He sat bolt upright, staring at him with burning eyes.

“Don’t you dare say shit like that! We’re gonna get out of this damned place if it’s the last thing we do! I’ll make sure of that! If push comes to shove, I don’t care who they are, I’m going to sing so we can get out of this fucking tank,” he growled loudly, and Hansol blinked at him. “I don’t know why I didn’t do that in the first place,” he continued in a huff, lying back down. 

Hansol watched him uneasily; he’d never really seen Minghao react so violently to something. He knew the other siren was stressed too, but there was something else in all his actions, something...afraid. Minghao was scared.

Hansol didn’t blame him. He was scared too. What if he never got to see his family again? What if he never got to see a whale up close?

“...Alright,” was all he was able to say, curling up with his back to Minghao, who only gave a rough noise of acknowledgement in response. Hansol just sighed, hugging himself as he laid on the soft sand, contemplating how he’d gotten into this situation in the first place, and if he would ever get out of it.

If only he hadn’t gone up to the surface like an idiot. If only he’d been a little less curious and obeyed Jihoon’s warning words. If only, if only. Poisonous thoughts, doubts and what-if’s, swirled through his head. What if the Land-Walkers simply didn’t do anything? What if they had lied and were only pretending to help them?

Well, if that was the case, it seemed that Minghao’s plan of singing them into compliance would have worked best.

Still, he had to admit that...well, he didn’t want to do that. He wanted to trust them. Seungcheol especially seemed...weirdly affected, and he didn’t know what to think of that, but the fact remained that Seungcheol had said he would try. Hansol would hold him to that.

So even though it was like torture, he waited.

* * *

Two days later, and Jun and Seokmin came back, late at night when everyone else left.

“Sorry about not being able to talk to you,” was the first thing Jun said, looking and sounding very apologetic. “Minhyuk, one of the other workers- he got kinda suspicious.”

“Yippee,” Minghao muttered sarcastically, still a few inches under the water. Hansol snorted.

“How’re things going? Did you manage to talk to the scary one?” he quipped, leaning on the lip of the tank. Jun and Seokmin exchanged an uncomfortable glance.

“Not yet, but- but don’t get mad, we’re trying. Seungcheol wants to talk to Seunghyun but...well, please understand that this is a delicate operation. It’s gonna look suspicious if we suddenly want to set you free for no reason at all.”

“And we can’t let Seungri know that you can talk, because if he knew, then he would definitely say no,” Seokmin added uneasily, looking around as though he expected the scary Land-Walker to suddenly appear.

“We also can’t keep coming all together, since that’ll look weird too,” Jun sighed, moving to sit cross-legged. “Seungcheol and Mingyu went home, but they say hi.”

Hansol nodded aimlessly to that, still half wondering whether things would actually go alright. For a few seconds, it was silent. Then Seokmin spoke.

“...Do you guys just live on your own out there? Doesn’t it ever get lonely with just the two of you?” His voice was purely curious, inquisitive and non-threatening, but Hansol tensed a little all the same.

“...Sometimes we come across other sirens,” he said delicately, avoiding Seokmin’s eye. “But if I have Minghao it’s alright. I don’t see why I would need anyone else.” While he spoke, he was thinking of his whole family, his whole little pod. If he had Minghao, had Jeonghan and Jihoon and Soonyoung and Chan, then he was never lonely. They were all he needed.

“...I see,” Seokmin hummed, leaning back on his hands. As if summoned, Minghao poked his head above the water, looking curiously up at the two Land-Walkers. “...Ok I don’t wanna sound insensitive but this had been on my mind forever- are you two like…?” His hastily-said question trailed off as he waved a hand at them, and for a second Hansol just kind of frowned at him.

Then it hit him and he almost shoved Minghao away from him.

“Dear god no!” he huffed, shaking his head. “No- no _way_! He’s like my brother!” Minghao, incredibly confused, gave him a kind of indignant huff.

“What was that for?” he pouted, or at least, as close to a pout as Minghao was willing to get.

“He asked if we were mates,” Hansol explained dryly. Instantly, a similar expression of disgust and surprise covered the other siren’s face and he spit out some choice swear words at the Land-Walkers, who were both stifling laughter with their hands.

“Ok, ok, we get it, you aren’t together,” Jun chuckled, biting his lip to try and hide his giggles. 

“Damn right,” Hansol clicked under his breath, shaking his head as he imagined Soonyoung and Jihoon- an _actually_ mated pair- and grimaced (although, they didn’t really act like mates, which was kinda funny whenever Jihoon snapped at Soonyoung’s cuddliness). “Are _you_ two together?” he shot right back, and Seokmin laughed.

“Over my cold, dead body. Junnie here’s had an eye on someone else for a while now, haven’t you~?” he teased, poking Jun in the side. Jun huffed in mild embarrassment, turning his nose up, but Hansol could see the faint flush high on his cheekbones. Interesting.

“...Why is he turning red? Is he choking?” Minghao hissed, giving Jun a look that was almost concerned. Hansol snorted.

”I think he’s blushing.” Minghao made a face.

“Weird. Why?”

“‘Cause he _likes_ you~”

“...”

“...I mean, I don’t know, Seokmin was vague. I’m just teasing.” Minghao scoffed at that, folding his arms.

“I sure hope so. I don’t want some spindly-legged Land-Walker looking at me with those heart eyes. Soonyoung does it too much and it annoys even me.”

“Well, you know Soonyoung, he’s whipped for Jihoon,” Hansol shrugged. “And as much as he’d like to deny it Jihoon’s whipped for Soonyoung too.”

“...What’re you two going on about now?” Jun’s curious voice alerted Hansol to the fact that he was no longer speaking the Land-Walker language, and he turned back to them with a cough.

“Just translating,” he lied easily. It wasn’t completely a lie anyway. At least Seokmin and Jun nodded. Again, an only slightly uncomfortable silence fell.

Then Jun asked a question Hansol never would have expected.

“Will you sing for us?” His voice was quiet, so quiet in fact that even Hansol’s good hearing nearly missed it, but when he did his eyes shot wide open. He didn’t dare believe what Jun had asked, but his eyes were shyly resolute.

“...What?” he asked shortly, still half sure he’d heard wrong. 

“Will you sing for us?” Jun repeated slowly, and Seokmin gave him a wide-eyed look. Hansol just kind of stared at him for a moment.

“...Oi, what’d he say?” Minghao demanded to know, poking his dorsal fin. Hansol opened and closed his mouth several times.

“He wants us to sing,” he offered dumbly, and Minghao’s eyes widened as well.

“What? Why?” he huffed, shooting Jun a look that was not returned. Hansol could only shrug. He turned back to the two Land-Walkers only to see Seokmin whispering urgently into Jun’s ear, looking worried. Jun was responding somewhat sullenly, hissing back what Hansol couldn’t hear. But eventually, it looked like Jun won, because Seokmin threw up his hands, looking defeated.

“...I wanna do it,” Minghao clicked suddenly, moving forward. Hansol stared at him.

“...You won’t hurt him, will you?” he asked uneasily, and Minghao rolled his eyes. 

“Of course not! I just wanna test out a song I’ve been wanting to try out on someone,” he shrugged casually, and that didn’t really make Hansol any less wary, but he supposed it couldn’t hurt, right? If Jun got too close he could just shove the man back.

“...I’m gonna go grab earbuds,” Seokmin mumbled, and Hansol nodded; that was probably a good idea, just in case Jun decided to do something rash. The skinny Land-Walker jumped up and disappeared for a couple minutes, then reappeared.

“Alright, go uh...do your thing,” he shrugged, speaking just a bit too loudly. Hansol blinked at Minghao, who was maintaining rather charged eye-contact with Jun; Hansol sort of wanted to look away.

“If you lure him too close to the water, I’m gonna shove you back under,” he warned, and Minghao only nodded.

“I won’t, don’t worry,” he hummed, and Hansol could tell he was getting himself ready by the way his voice sounded a little richer than before. Hansol was cautious but also a little curious; he didn’t want Jun to get hurt but he also wanted to know how the Land-Walker would react.

The air was tense, charged, almost kind of thick, and Hansol didn’t even want to breathe lest he break the weird silence. He just watched, whole body rigged to move if he needed to, as Minghao took a deep breath, eyes locked onto Jun’s.

“ _It’s unclear in the fog, but there’s someone inside. It’s familiar as if they feel me but it’s different, different, different~_ ”

Hansol’s eyes widened. He knew that song; he’d heard Minghao singing it to himself when he thought he was alone, coming up with lyrics on the spot until he’d perfected it. He never thought Minghao would sing it to anyone else- a Land-Walker no less.

“ _Your waving hand, not sure if you want me to come or go. What does it mean, tell me about it~_ ” Minghao was leaning closer to Jun, a smirk just barely beginning to curl his thin lips, but Hansol forced himself to stay still, watching silently. The air felt strange with Minghao’s power, almost cold. 

Once, Hansol had (with Jeonghan’s permission and watchful eye on him), gone up to the surface during a storm. He’d been quite tossed about by the roaring waves, but the thing he remembered most was the feel of the air when his head broke the surface. It was like nothing he’d ever felt. Electricity from what Jeonghan called _lightning_ crackled through the air in sharp jolts, making his whole body tingle, making his sinuses tickle with the feeling, making all his scales stand on end. It was an intense, unforgettable feeling.

Right now, Minghao’s singing kind of copied that weird, tingling sensation. Hansol didn’t know how or why, but he could feel his dorsal fin bristling, and the longer Minghao kept singing, the more Hansol felt like he was once again on that storm-tossed sea, looking up at the tumultuous clouds and waiting for the eye to bring peace for a little while.

Hansol couldn’t bring himself to move when Minghao leaned closer to Jun and Jun leaned closer to him, eyes still connected. He didn’t dare move to break that weird connection, and it looked like Seokmin didn’t want to do anything either, but his eyes were almost comically wide.

However, both of them tensed up when Minghao quite casually reached out of the water to cup Jun’s cheek, thumb stroking across his skin once before settling. Jun looked completely and utterly entranced, eyes wide, lips slightly parted, gaze kind of overly sharp and worryingly vacant all at once. 

And the strangest of all, even with his wide, stunned eyes and slack expression, Jun was silently mouthing the words along with him.

Hansol and Seokmin exchanged a look, eyes wide, emotions shocked. Still, they didn’t move, hardly daring to take in a single breath as Minghao did...whatever he was doing; honestly Hansol didn’t know his intentions.

“ _When I meet you after time passes, I’ll know uh (you protected me), I’ll know uh (I desired you). My I~_ ” When Minghao finally trailed off, his last notes ringing in the air, none of them moved for a solid three minutes, hardly breathing, barely thinking, dead-still for three long minutes.

Minghao moved first, pulling his hand back from Jun’s face and sinking back into the water, giving the stunned man a narrow-eyed look that seemed to ask _well? How was that?_

Hansol and Seokmin were the next to break out of their little trance. Hansol wasn’t quite sure what to feel at Minghao’s strange display. If he didn’t know better, he’d think Minghao had just started courting Jun, since sirens sang to each other with specials songs when they took an interest in one another. But there was no way that was true, so, dumbfounded, he didn’t know what to think.

It took Jun an extra minute to blink, but when he did, an odd clarity entered his eyes, a new determination that seemed to fill him up from the inside and flowed out of his being.

“I’m gonna get you two out of here,” he whispered, ignoring Seokmin’s still wide eyes, “I’m gonna get you out if it’s the last thing I do.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Angsty Hansol sign me up  
> Also gotta hit that JunHao agenda lets go  
> My I is a fucking bop go listen


	16. Well, You Have To Try

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seungcheol finally talks to Seungri, with...less than ideal results.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HEHEHEHEHEHEH FINALLY I BET YOU'VE BEEN WAITING FOR THIS  
> I HOPE IT'S DRAMATIC ENOUGH IT PLAYS LIKE A MOVIE SCENE

Seungcheol was...hesitant, to say the least, about going to Seungri and trying to get him to let Hansol and Minghao go. As the man who was essentially the leader of this whole project, Seungri had power, and Seungcheol didn’t want to know what would happen if he somehow found out Hansol and Minghao could talk. He’d probably subject them to all sorts of awful tests. Seungri could do lots of things.

So, appropriately, Seungcheol was somewhat intimidated by him. The man used to work with the police, how could you blame him? He didn’t want to end up on the open end of a gun barrel.

But he knew he had to try. For Hansol and Minghao. If he let them down, then...well then he wouldn’t forgive himself. He had to.

* * *

Standing in front of Seunghyun’s office was only a little less nerve-wracking than standing in front of Seungri’s. Seunghyun was definitely more approachable, but Seungcheol was nervous. He didn’t know how Seunghyun would react to his sudden words of defiance.

 _Quit being a coward and just do it,_ said Jun’s voice in his head. Seungcheol shook his head a little, stepping forward and raising a hand to knock. A loud hum from inside followed almost instantly, and, after taking a deep breath, Seungcheol stepped inside, eyes landing on Seunghyun, who was chewing on a pencil as he sat with his feet kicked up on his desk.

“Oh, Seungcheol, hey there. Need something?” he asked casually, pushing his glasses up his nose. Seungcheol hesitated and Seunghyun frowned a little. “...Sit,” he hummed, gesturing to the empty chair in front of his desk. Seungcheol sat, still mulling over his words.

“So what’s eatin’ at’cha?” Seunghyun grinned, probably hoping to ease his anxiety. Seungcheol smiled awkwardly, but his face quickly fell into seriousness.

“I think we should let the sirens go,” he said flatly, wanting to be to the point. “I don’t believe it’s right to keep such intelligent creatures from their home. They’ve proven they can understand us to some degree, and I don’t think being kept in tanks is agreeing with their biology.”

Seunghyun just kind of stared at him for a second, wide-eyed, as though he hadn’t quite heard what Seungcheol had said. Then he blinked.

“...I see. What brought this about?” He leaned back in his chair, waving a hand for him to continue, and Seungcheol hesitated again.

“I just...They act so human, and it just doesn’t sit right with me. I feel like it’s wrong, like we- like we kidnapped them or something,” he sighed, not looking at the older man. “Hansol used the cards to spell ‘sea’, which clearly implies that he knows what kind of situation he’s in and doesn’t like it. And when we did the CAT scans, me and Jun learned he could actually understand us.”

At that, Seunghyun leaned forward. “He can understand you?” he repeated, looking both surprised and a little suspicious. Seungcheol nodded slowly.

“To an extent, I think,” he offered, not wanting to reveal too much. “He knew I was talking about him, at least, and he understood basic yes or no questions. You’ve seen me and Mingyu asking them stuff, right?”

“I have,” Seunghyun hummed, leaning back again. He was silent for a second. “What you’re asking me to do is very strange, Seungcheol. You have strong morals, and you must see yourself in Hansol, no? I can understand your concern, but...this isn’t something we can decide overnight.”

“I know. That’s why I want you to help me convince Seungri to drop this project,” Seungcheol said simply, somehow finding the courage to hold Seunghyun’s curiously suspicious gaze. They were both silent for a while.

Seunghyun looked away first, down at the papers on his desk.

“...I’ll think about it. If Hansol and Minghao really are as intelligent as you claim, then I’ll consider talking to Seungri to try and set them free. But keep in mind, this is a very big favor you’re asking of me,” he reminded, and Seungcheol nodded.

“I know, and I just want you to at least think about it for now. I know Jun and Mingyu and Seokmin feel the same as me. I just want you to think about it,” he repeated, and Seunghyun gave him a long, narrow-eyed look, gaze calculating. Seungcheol held his eyes, unwavering in his resolve. He had to get Seunghyun’s help, for Hansol and Minghao.

“...Alright. I’ll think about it. I won’t promise you anything, but...I’ll think about it,” Seunghyun said slowly, adjusting his glasses again. Seungcheol fought the urge to slump in relief. Seunghyun was a smart and reasonable man, and if he thought about something, he usually agreed to it if there was a good reason behind it.

Seungcheol thought he had a good reason. Keeping smart creatures like Hansol and Minghao in tanks was almost...almost barbaric, now that he thought about it. 

It was weird. He’d happily joined the little secret project, excited to see if sirens were real, and now he was just...sad at what had happened, sad that he’d aided in taking the two from their home. That knowledge weighed heavily on him as he stood up and bowed lightly to Seunghyun, who only acknowledged him with a distant hum.

Well, he had done his best with Seunghyun, and now he just had to wait for a response. He really hoped the older man would be able to help him; he was the only person who could speak sense into Seungri. 

Just in case, Seungcheol crossed his fingers as he left Seunghyun’s office.

* * *

“So how’d it go?” Seokmin asked him worriedly, half whispering as they watched Seunghyun stand motionless in front of the siren’s tank, engaged in a silent stare-off with the two.

“He said he’d consider it,” Seungcheol hissed back, trying to distract himself with writing down some data from his computer. “I don’t know what that means, but...I hope it’s good.” Seokmin made a quiet, uneasy noise, twisting his fingers.

“Also, have you seen Mingyu? He hasn’t shown up yet today and he hasn’t answered any of his texts or calls.” Seungcheol groaned, thumping his head on the table. Great, he was already stressed and now one of his friends has gone AWOL.

“I heard he got a date with that skinny beanpole from the bar but I don’t see why he wouldn’t be able to answer our texts,” Jun called from a doorway over, busy carrying a bucket full of carefully-sorted plankton. Seungcheol raised an eyebrow.

“Impressive. If he shows up, remind me to congratulate him,” he snorted, thinking back to the very uncomfortable-looking man he’d brushed by in the bar. How Mingyu had managed to charm him into a date was beyond him (and personally, he thought the man’s companion was cuter, with cat-like eyes and a nice little smile. He seemed kinda familiar, even).

“ _If_ he shows up,” Seokmin chuckled weakly, peering over the railing to keep at Seunghyun again, who hadn’t moved at all.

Then he moved. He turned and looked up Seungcheol, and there was almost something challenging in his eyes, something daring him to step up. Seungcheol held his gaze, and after a tense few seconds, Seunghyun nodded, then turned and walked away.

Seungcheol knew that Seunghyun was on his side. He practically sagged in relief, leaning heavily on the railing. Seokmin patted his back. 

“I think we have a better chance now,” Seungcheol mumbled into his arms before standing up again, stretching his back to ease the tension there. He and Seokmin exchanged a smirk. 

He had a chance now, and he was going to take that chance if it killed him (hopefully it wouldn’t). 

* * *

“So let me get this straight: you want me to let the sirens go.” Seungcheol nodded, trying not to balk under Seungri’s heavy gaze, unblinking and judgemental.

“Yes, sir. I believe Seunghyun talked about this already with you?” He’d seen Seunghyun walk into Seungri’s office a while ago and walk out looking somewhat troubled, but he’d said nothing so Seungcheol didn’t push. 

“He did. And I was told you, Mingyu, Junhui, and Seokmin are in on this as well?” he questioned, looking every bit as intimidating as the officer he used to be. Again, Seungcheol nodded. He figured it would be best to simply get to the point, so he took a deep breath and just launched right into it.

“I don’t think it’s right to keep Hansol and Minghao here,” he said flatly, keeping his expression neutral. “Detaining them for any longer just goes against our morals.” At that, Seunghyun’s eyes narrowed further.

“And you want us to just abandon this whole project? I’ve been working on this for years before you joined it. This is important research,” he huffed, and Seungcheol fought back a snappy response.

“It’s unethical,” he countered, leaning forward a tiny bit. “It would be like experimenting on humans. They know what’s going on around them, and they know what’s happening to them. I think that’s reason enough to let them go.”

“On the contrary, I think we could work together with them,” Seungri said lightly, raising an eyebrow. Seungcheol frowned. 

“By treating them like animals? If we want to work together, we should treat them as equals.” He couldn’t help the little strain of indignation that slipped into his voice, especially when Seungri just sighed and stood up.

“Why the sudden interest?” was all the older man asked, gesturing for him to follow. Seungcheol frowned deeper.

“After seeing how intelligent they are, again, it doesn’t sit right with me to keep them here. It’d be like keeping orcas in swimming pools for entertainment.” His nose wrinkled at the mere thought. Seungri shot him a glance as he walked, full of unreadable, questioning emotions.

Seungcheol decided to stay silent as they walked. They were going down to the lab, he noticed, following a seemingly unconscious path led by the older man’s footsteps.

“I’m sure you’re aware, but I have no intention of letting them go, not after we’ve gathered so much data. Sirens aren’t supposed to exist. Everyone thinks they’re mythical creatures. Here, we have solid, literal proof in our hands that they’re real,” Seungri hummed casually. “Imagine the discoveries we could make about deep-water areas we haven’t been to yet. Imagine the media. This is important, Seungcheol, and I don’t want to give it up anytime soon.”

"It just doesn't feel right to keep them here and test on them like they're animals when they're intelligent, sentient creatures capable of independent thought and feeling complex emotions," Seungcheol argued. “And if we tell the world about them, who knows what’ll happen? This could damage their safety. Maybe we should keep them secret, so no one tries to hurt them. We tell one person and the next thing you know, poachers are gonna go out looking for siren tails to hang on their walls.” That was a bit gruesome, but he knew he had to go to extremes.

“Not if we put laws against it,” Seungri shot right back.

“That didn’t stop people from illegally hunting rhinos, did it?” Seungcheol huffed, starting to get angry. “All I’m saying is, it might be better to just break this off now before things get out of our control.”

“I assure you, I have a perfectly fine hold of things. Nothing is going to leak out,” Seungri said in his infuriatingly calm, sharp voice. Seungcheol had never wanted to slap him more.

“And if, somehow, it does? What will you do then?” Seungcheol challenged, not sure when his new courage was coming from. They walked through the doors into the area where Hansol and Minghao were, and out of the corner of his eye he could see them stir, rising up to look curiously at him.

Seungri rounded on him. “It will not, unless you decide to purposefully let the information out. But you wouldn’t do that, would you. Right, Seungcheol?” he hissed, eyes narrowing dangerously. Seungcheol stared right back with a heated glare of his own.

“Of course not, but if something compromises the safety of these creatures then I think you’ll find I’m willing to do a lot of things,” he said quietly, voice even, daring Seungri to tell him wrong. They were practically nose to nose, and Seungcheol could feel the tension making all the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. He resisted the urge to blink.

“My final answer is no, Seungcheol,” Seungri finally said, voice low and slow and intimidating. Seungcheol set his jaw.

“Then I politely ask you to reconsider, sir,” he forced out in a voice of clearly fake politeness, fingers twitching to ball themselves into fists. “I know Seunghyun agrees with me.”

“And what makes you think that’s going to change my mind? The fact that we are friends means little,” Seungri scoffed, and Seungcheol’s eyes narrowed. That was cold.

“I ask you to reconsider,” he said again, voice tight. He was still looking directly into Seungri’s eyes, and it was just then that he noticed how cold they were, void of warm feelings. Mingyu and Seokmin’s eyes were bright and expressive, and Jun’s eyes were clever and mischievous, but Seungri’s eyes were almost dead-looking in comparison.

Even the long-haired siren had more emotion in his eyes, sparkling with something tempting and lusty but in no way empty and blank like Seungri’s eyes. It made Seungcheol shiver a tiny bit and he cursed himself for it. 

Instead of answering, Seungri simply turned away, lab coat fluttering mockingly like a villain’s cape as he rounded the corner and strode out of sight. The second he was gone, Seungcheol let out a satisfying, feral sort of growl to no one but himself, a snarl just to let out frustration. Why had he ever agreed to work with Seungri in the first place? And how did Seunghyun deal with him??

Well, he supposed that if he hadn’t agreed to help on the project, he wouldn’t have met Hansol and Minghao, and they could have ended up in much worse positions.

A sudden tapping sound made him look over to said sirens, who were both watching, expressions a mix of curiosity and unease. Right, they’d seen that whole exchange, hadn’t they?

“What happened?” Hansol mouthed at him. Seungcheol ran a hand through his hair, hesitating for a second, then waved it off. He’d tell them later.

* * *

It was just him when he went up to sit on the lid of Hansol and Minghao’s tank. Over the day, he’d lost some of his stubborn fire, and now he just felt kind of deflated.

“...So he said no,” Hansol sighed quietly, folding his arms on the lip of the tank and setting his cheek on his bicep. Seungcheol shrugged, tracing circles in the glass.

“Pretty much, yeah. I mean, Seunghyun kind of implied he was going to help me, but I don’t know how much he can do considering Seungri’s a huge asshole when he wants to be, so...I think all I can do now is just wait.”

“...You’ll help us, right?” Hansol mumbled, so soft Seungcheol almost didn’t hear it. Immediately he straightened up.

“Of course! I never said I was just gonna abandon you guys. If push comes to shove, I’ll...I’ll convince the others to help me bust you out of here.”

“Jun already agreed to that,” Hansol snorted dryly, switching to lie on his other arm. “After Minghao sang to him he practically swore to it.”

“...Minghao sang to him?” That was...somewhat worrying. But Hansol waved a hand.

“Don’t worry. He didn’t use any kind of spell or anything, so whatever Jun said was of his own free will. Plus, me and Seokmin were playing damage control in case Jun tried to fling himself into the water.”

Seungcheol laughed weakly at that, hunching over again. His chest felt heavy with something almost like disappointment, but only in himself. He was supposed to get help for them, but he probably only ended up making things worse. Seungri was too stubborn to bend, he knew that, and he felt like he’d only sealed the siren’s fate of being trapped in their tank forever.

Hansol patting his knee made him look up. The siren’s eyes were weirdly understanding, empathetic in such a painfully familiar way, and once again, Seungcheol shivered at how such alien eyes could display such a _human_ emotion, even though different blood ran through his veins and they lived in entirely different worlds. It was just so strange and so...so sobering.

Seungcheol made up his mind that night: he would help Hansol and Minghao get out of there, no matter what.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So what you think ;;;;)


	17. Big Shook

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seungkwan meets Jeonghan. He is...surprised, to say the least. Quite shooketh, one might even say.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> haHA I finally did it !!

“We’re- we’re going to see _who_?” Seungkwan stared at Joshua, who, with another wave of his hand, extinguished all the candles without ever seeming to touch them. His eyes were still glowing dangerously, bright gold in the dim light of the shop.

“Jeonghan. A very close...friend of mine,” Joshua said in clipped tones, quite unlike his normal honeyed voice.

“More than just friends,” Wonwoo scoffed, but Seungkwan raised an eyebrow upon seeing him laying a blanket over Mingyu’s sleeping form and fiddling with the edges.

“C’mon, let’s go,” Joshua insisted, snapping his fingers. To Seungkwan’s great amazement, a soft, pastel blue sweater flew from a nearby chair directly into his hand, and he tugged it over his head with a sort of weird, restless indignance that contrasted greatly with the sweater’s gentle tones.

“Al-alright,” Seungkwan mumbled, stunned. Who the hell was Joshua? _What_ was he? And what did Wonwoo know?

He didn’t ask. He just stumbled blindly after Joshua, who waited for Wonwoo to stop fussing over Mingyu and his blanket before setting off at a brisk pace down the hill, jaw set in a tense sort of way. Seungkwan chanced a glance at Wonwoo, silently asking for answers, but the other man’s face was hard to read.

Seungkwan was silent for a little bit, but of course, being Seungkwan, he couldn’t stay that way for long. So, when they entered the town, he ran to catch up with Joshua’s long strides, purposeful and brisk.

“What- what was that? How did you do that? Who are you?” he asked in a rush, a little bit out of breath. Joshua didn’t even bother looking at him.

“Not here. We’re going to my house first,” he said shortly, and all Seungkwan could do was follow lest he want to attract a crowd. Stunned and unsure of what to even think, he just lagged back next to Wonwoo and stayed quiet for the rest of the walk.

But why were they going in the direction of the lighthouse…? The longer they walked, the more confused Seungkwan grew, especially when they walked past the lighthouse altogether.

“Where…?” He looked at Wonwoo, but he just shook his head, eyes still unreadable. Seungkwan bit his lip to stop himself from bursting out with questions. Was it too much to ask for just a little bit of closure? Where the heck were they going??

He’d never been _past_ the lighthouse before, but apparently Joshua had, because the cat-eyed man followed seemingly invisible trails that Seungkwan would have never seen had he not been looking closely, and as they walked out into a more natural area, where the town got smaller behind them and the cliffs grew up in front of them, everything seemed to feel a lot more charged, the air filled with a tingling energy that set itself in Seungkwan’s bones and didn’t go away. 

“I’ve never been here before,” he couldn’t stop himself from saying, and Joshua laughed dryly from a few meters in front of him. 

“I know. No one gets through here unless I want them to,” he said cryptically, parting a wall of brambles with another wave of his hand. Seungkwan gaped.

“...Oh,” he mumbled in a stunned whisper, and Wonwoo at least patted him on the shoulder in a consoling sort of way. It didn’t help very much but the gesture was appreciated.

He only got more curious and more confused when he saw a quaint little house nestled at the base of the hill leading up to the highest point of the cliffs, small and unassuming. Seungkwan guessed that was where Joshua lived. It was kind of funny; he’d never really though about where Joshua lived; he just seemed so strange and wispy that him having a physical settlement seemed weird.

But indeed, Joshua was heading towards the little house, and Wonwoo didn’t seem bothered, so Seungkwan kept his mouth shut and followed.

There was no lock or handle on the door. It simply opened at Joshua’s touch as he brushed his fingers across it, and again, Seungkwan stared openly. Just who had he befriended?

When he stepped inside, everything just got weirder. The first room was a little bigger than Wonwoo’s book shop, but only barely, and all the shelves were cluttered with strange objects, ranging from crystals to seashells to keys that didn’t look like they belonged in human hands. The whole place made him feel tingly inside, like there was some sort of magical aura pressing on his chest. Still, it was kind of homey.

“Make yourself comfortable, I have to look for something,” Joshua mumbled distractedly, waving a hand as he disappeared into one of the back rooms. “Wonwoo, go ahead and explain,” he added over his shoulder.

“Yes, please do,” Seungkwan encouraged in a strained, high-pitched wheeze. Wonwoo had the nerve to smile dryly.

“Well, if you haven’t noticed already, Joshua’s a sorcerer. Sort of. Technically he’s a magician but we don’t get into the details. He can use magic. All of these things?” he swept a hand around at the objects cluttering the shelves, “They all have magical properties. I’d know.”

“...Of course,” Seungkwan mumbled in that same high-pitched, kind of frantic tone. Wonwoo patted his back again.

“I know it’s probably a lot to take in, but you gotta trust us on this. Also, don’t freak out when you see Jeonghan.”

“Why would I freak out I totally wouldn’t freak out who would freak out there’s no reason to freak out I am _totally_ calm right now who says I’m not calm I’m very very calm-” A slightly harder pat to the shoulder made Seungkwan shut up, and he realized quite quickly that he was indeed freaking out.

“Relax. This stuff’s been around since the world formed. People just don’t look close enough to see it all around them,” Wonwoo grinned, pointing his finger at a book lying on the arm of a chair nearby. The cover and a few pages flipped over and Wonwoo pouted.

“Dammit, I never can do it right,” he sighed, letting his hand drop. Seungkwan was quite sure he was hyperventilating at that point. “Oh well. Joshua’s always been freakishly good at it, and you can’t really be _taught_ magic, so all I can do is make pages turn.” He shrugged good-naturedly, and Seungkwan turned away to lean on a table.

“Magic is real. Fuck, magic is real,” he repeated to himself, wide-eyed and breathing heavily. Muttering some more choice swearwords under his breath, he ignored Wonwoo’s curious, concerned noise in favor of continuing his mental breakdown because _fuck logic magic was real_.

“Get used to it,” Joshua said flatly as he reappeared out of a side room, a silver chain around his neck that dipped into his sweater, hidden from Seungkwan’s view. Casually, he waved his hand and snapped his fingers a couple times, letting the room reorganize itself a little before he simply strode out the door as though he’d never been there. Seungkwan felt a little faint. 

Wide-eyed and somewhat unresponsive, he once again followed Joshua back down the trail, distantly observing how the bushes and flora lining the paths slowly curled over their footsteps, hiding the mini trail from any wandering eyes. He still couldn’t quite believe it.

He had only come back to himself a little when he saw that they were going up to the lighthouse. In the daylight, it didn’t look as scary or haunted, instead just kind of sad and abandoned. 

But Joshua didn’t go into the lighthouse. No, he went a little bit past it, down to the pier where Seungkwan had seen him standing, hand outstretched on the night of his house arrest. He was finally going to see what Joshua had done on that strange night. 

“Don’t freak out,” Wonwoo mumbled again, coming to a stop a few meters behind Joshua.

“...Ok,” Seungkwan mumbled back, still too stunned to react to things properly. He watched as Joshua rolled his pants up to his knees and sat down right on the end of the pier, dipping his feet into the water and looking almost casual if it weren’t for the expression of pure seriousness he wore on his usually serene face. 

Still, his eyes widened a little when Joshua raised a hand, golden markings beginning to glow on his palms and fingers as he reached down to just barely brush the water with his fingertips. Seungkwan couldn’t see his eyes, but he assumed they were glowing again. When Joshua took the silver chain off of his neck, he couldn’t quite make out the little charm on the end, but it was glowing too, this time a soft reddish-orange.

“Now we wait,” Wonwoo sighed, folding his arms and settling comfortably on his feet. 

“Wait- wait for what?” Seungkwan asked uneasily, shooting the water around them a look. The pier was so low that the planks were damp, and he wondered how the rickety boards had held up for so long without just collapsing into the sea.

“For Jeonghan,” Wonwoo answered simply. Seungkwan’s brow furrowed, but he didn’t push. Why would they need to be on the pier to wait for Jeonghan? Unless… No, there was no way… Seungkwan kept his mouth shut; there was no way _that_ was true.

But the longer they waited, the more antsy Seungkwan became. He shuffled from foot to foot, words building up in his mouth, dying to be spilled. He had so many questions, so many things he wanted to know. 

Then he saw the lump in the water, way, way out, and he stopped himself. Was it...getting closer? He told himself there was no way that was true. It couldn’t be.

Still, he couldn’t stop himself from asking.

“Wonwoo?” he mumbled quietly, eyes fixed on the lump as it drew closer and closer to the pier. The older man hummed, eyes also on the water. Seungkwan took in a shaky breath.

“Jeonghan...wouldn’t happen to be a siren, would he?” he breathed, almost afraid to speak the words. It just seemed so impossible.

For answer, Wonwoo just pointed at the water. The lump was almost at the pier, and for a second it dipped below the water again, then came back up, slowing down when it was close enough. When it was right in front of the pier, right in the range to just pull Joshua into the water, it fully breached the surface, hoisting itself half up onto the pier.

Seungkwan’s breath hitched. That was definitely a human head. A human head with too-sharp teeth and slits on its neck and scales dotting its cheeks. 

Then Joshua leaned down and...kissed it. Right on the lips, a smile on his own face. Seungkwan put his forehead in his hands, too stunned to even react. Joshua just kissed a siren. He’d seen it all. Somewhere in the world, a pig must have learned to fly. Well, considering magic was real, he probably wasn’t far off.

He looked up when he heard...clicking. Rapid-fire clicking, combined with the occasional hiss and/or purr. They were talking to each other...somehow. Seungkwan just stared. He glanced at Wonwoo, but, as usual, Wonwoo was completely unbothered. 

Compared to the older man, Seungkwan felt like he’d been stripped naked and placed in a survival combat reality show. He had no clue what to do because Joshua and the siren were nuzzling each other and still talking in their weird clicking language and he was so out of his depth that he wondered if he was dreaming.

He pinched himself just in case, and it hurt. Not fun, but at least he wasn’t dreaming.

When Wonwoo made a noise, he looked up, only to see Joshua beckoning them closer. Did Joshua want them to go closer to- to a _siren_? An honest-to-god siren?? His eyes must have looked like saucers, but Wonwoo ushered him forward with a hand on his back, and he stumbled forward until he was standing next to Joshua.

The siren was...pretty, in a feminine kind of way. He had high cheekbones and clever if not somewhat slightly worried eyes, combined with long, tawny hair that draped nicely over his back. 

And then he spoke. 

“Hello, your highness. I was told you might appear to me sometime soon.” He dipped his head in a short bow, before looking back up at him with a smile. His voice was breathy and high and knowing, something powerful hidden in the timbre and cadence of his speech.

Seungkwan was pretty sure he almost fainted right there and then. For several seconds, he didn’t respond, too busy staring and trying to take in the fact that he was looking at a real-live siren.

“...Hi,” he finally forced out, voice strained and a few octaves higher than he would have liked. Jeonghan chuckled, then turned back to Joshua, mumbling something in his clicking language that Joshua nodded to. They spoke for a few more seconds, then Joshua turned to Seungkwan.

“Jeonghan here- his family was taken by the lab. Two of his children. He’d like them back. I want you to help me. You want to help, right?” His voice left literally zero room for argument, but Seungkwan hesitated anyway. Help break sirens out of the SVT lab? Would he be willing to do that?

...Fuck it, why not.

“...Yeah, ok,” he mumbled, still staring at Jeonghan’s bright red scales. All three of the others smiled at him. 

“Perfect,” Joshua purred, though his face went somewhat serious as he continued to whisper something to Jeonghan, whose knowing smile fell into oddly worried lines. It was a strange look on his inherently clever, smirky face. Wonwoo moved forward to join them, and Seungkwan stayed where he was, blinking stupidly while he tried to convince himself he wasn’t dreaming.

It all just felt a little surreal. Just what was real, and what was fake? Were there such things as reality and imagination anymore? The lines were blurring and suddenly Seungkwan felt kind of lost.

To think all of this had started because of two letters he’d found on some sketchy site in the deep web. Two letters, and now sirens were real and Joshua was a magician.

What a life he led.

He had to speak up. “So- so what does- what does that mean? What am I supposed to do?” He walked forward and hesitantly crouched down next to Joshua, keeping his eyes on Jeonghan’s freakishly long nails, perched on either side of Joshua’s knees. Jeonghan smirked thinly at him in a way that was far too human for Seungkwan to be comfortable with.

“I know for a fact I can lure out one of the people working at the lab. He’s the cute one who you gave the seashell too,” Jeonghan hummed casually, playing with a piece of fluff on Joshua’s sweater.

“Oh, him? He looked like a lost puppy; it was adorable. He has potential,” Joshua nodded, looking out at the water.

“...You’re gonna wake Mingyu up, right?” Wonwoo asked in a voice that was weirdly small and awkward. Joshua snorted.

“No, I’m just gonna leave him there in the shop,” he chuckled sarcastically, and Wonwoo rolled his eyes. “Anyway, how’re the kids?” he continued, moving one hand to lace with Jeonghan’s.

“Soonyoung and Hoonie are worried sick and Chan’s just kind of angry,” Jeonghan sighed, losing his smirk, probably squeezing Joshua’s fingers. “But I did find him hugging one of Hansol’s pillows when he thought no one could see him.”

To that, Joshua just hummed, eyes still fixed on the horizon. “We should do it soon. I have a bad feeling about waiting till later.” That alarmed Seungkwan quite a lot, but Jeonghan and Wonwoo nodded.

“It’s always best to follow when Joshua gets a gut feeling about something,” Wonwoo explained with a shrug, casual as always. Seungkwan balked.

“Just how soon are you talking about?” he asked hesitantly, half not wanting to know the answer.

“After you talk to that one worker.” Joshua’s eyes dropped to Jeonghan’s, who smirked.

“Seungcheol, he said his name was. He’s very open when drunk, you know that? No filter at all. Very sweet. He called me pretty and complimented my voice.”

“You _are_ pretty, though,” Joshua chuckled, cracking a small smile to pet the top of Jeonghan’s head. “And maybe that’ll help. If he’s an honest man then I think we’re both looking for the same thing here.”

Jeonghan nodded, eyes moving to look at the chain around Joshua’s neck. Now that Seungkwan looked closer, it appeared to be a scale of some sort, bright red just like the color of Jeonghan’s tail and glowing dimly.

“It lets him talk in their language,” Wonwoo muttered to him after catching onto his gaze. Seungkwan nodded dumbly. Magic was a funny thing.

“So...how’re we gonna do this? How do we break sirens out of _the_ SVT lab?” He looked around at the assembled people (and one...creature), eyebrows raised.

Jeonghan turned another smirk at him, full of tooth and fang.

“How else do you think? I’m gonna sing them out of there.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Seungkwan freaking out about magic is the most sane, relatable character reaction in this whole book ngl


	18. What The Heck Was That About??

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hansol teases Minghao, thinks about love, goes through some angst, and contemplates the whereabouts of their legged friends.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is  
> so boring im sorry  
> I hope you enjoy anyway ;-;
> 
> HAVE SOME CRUMBS  
> I HAVE CRUMBS FOR THE PEOPLE  
> FEED MY CHILDREN

“...Minghao, were you courting Jun?” The look that covered Minghao’s face was incredibly satisfying: a mix of indignation, embarrassment, and straight-up denial, all blended into one weird-looking but very amusing expression. 

“I was not!” he huffed defensively, and Hansol raised an eyebrow. It was unusual for the normally aloof siren to get so flustered. So he was right, it seemed. “I was just testing out my song,” he mumbled in a quieter voice, and Hansol smirked, floating upside down to poke at Minghao’s nose.

“Totally,” he snickered, and Minghao glared at him, snapping at the offending finger. “C’mon, Hao, just admit it. You like him, don’t you~?” he teased, swimming around Minghao in a tight circle. Minghao slapped him with his tail.

“I do _not_ ,” he growled emphatically, folding his arms. Hansol snickered again, moving in a lazy arc.

“‘Course you don’t,” he hummed airily, lacing his hands behind his head. Minghao kept glaring at him and he ignored it easily. 

After Jun and Seokmin had left, Hansol had waited for any sign of the pretty Land-Walker to be under some sort of trance, but he moved with all of his usual fluid grace, almost more focused than usual. It was kind of funny; Minghao’s song must have done something positive. He and Seokmin exchanged a lot of tiredly amused looks during that time. 

He just hoped Minghao and Jun wouldn’t end up like Soonyoung and Jihoon. The older siren often pinned Jihoon to his chest in impromptu (and usually very unappreciated) hugs that most of the time led to him being banned from touching Jihoon for a day or two, but Hansol knew that if Soonyoung genuinely asked Jihoon to do something for him, Jihoon would take the moon from the sky and hand it to his mate on a silver platter. Chan, as the youngest, just kinda drifted happily along on his own and Jeonghan…

Jeonghan was strange in matters of the heart. He considered them all his children (even grumpy Jihoon), though they weren’t related at all, and he sometimes made references to someone or something he called his “kitten”. Hansol didn’t know what a kitten was but he assumed it was something Jeonghan was fond of. The older siren never really talked about mates or love or any of that, but whenever he spoke of his mysterious little kitten he looked quite loving.

He asked once, and the answer he’d gotten was less than satisfactory.

“My kitten?” Jeonghan had repeated when he’d pointed it out. A kind of half fond, half amused look covered his face at that, not quite his signature smirk but something a little softer. “He is very precious to me, I will tell you that. You can’t meet him though, but I know he would like you.”

And that was that. He never got a more thorough answer and if he pushed, Jeonghan just gave him a weird, narrow-eyed smile that made him more frustrated than anything else.

And he himself? He’d never really thought about love. It just didn’t seem...necessary, not when he had his family around him to keep him company. Of course, he supposed he could see the appeal of Jihoon and Soonyoung’s relationship, but at the same time it also kind of deterred him from wanting one (he knew they loved each other, but he’d listened to Jihoon griping at Soonyoung too many times to count). He figured he’d just wait and see. If he never found a mate, that was fine. If he found one, that would be great too.

But Minghao… Minghao had never given any indication of wanting or ever even thinking about being in a relationship. And with a Land-Walker no less! Hansol almost wanted to laugh at the slight hypocrisy of it. It just seemed so amusing, that after so long of glaring distastefully at Soonyoung when he kissed Jihoon’s cheeks or when they held hands, Minghao was (no matter how much he denied it) courting someone else. There was no other explanation.

And he found it hilarious. To think that stubborn, aloof Minghao would use his courting song on a creature with legs- it amused Hansol to no end. He’d never let Minghao live it down.

“...How would that even work?” he mumbled aloud to himself, only to receive a smack to the back of his head. He whined, whipping around to pout at Minghao, who was giving him a raised eyebrow.

“You don’t even know what I was talking about,” Hansol huffed, but Minghao just kept glaring at him.

“I can guess,” he muttered, flicking his tail fin back and forth in the way he always did when he was agitated. Hansol smirked a little, floating upside down to grin at the older siren.

“I am curious, how did he manage to get your attention? I never expected you to go for something with legs, Hao-”

Again, that earned him another slap. Minghao must have been picking up violent tendencies from Jihoon.

“If we’re talking pure aesthetics, I still think Mingyu is more handsome,” Hansol huffed, and Minghao rolled his eyes.

“One, you’re wrong and you can’t change my mind. Jun is much prettier. Two, y’know, speaking of, where is Mingyu? He hasn’t been here all day.”

“...You got a point.” Hansol immediately flipped right-way-up to look around for the tall Land-Walker, who was nowhere to be seen and hadn’t been for the whole day, which was kind of strange. Jun usually arrived first but Mingyu almost never got there last (Seungcheol was the slow riser).

“Hm. Maybe he skipped,” Minghao hummed, shrugging nonchalantly as he picked up a polished stone, unnaturally hewn in the shape of a perfect cube with little dots carved out on each side. Jun called it a “die” and explained that it was for gambling games. Hansol could sort of get the concept; sometimes he and Chan competed in silly contests to win the tastiest bits of a crab or to get the other to do something stupid.

“Seems kinda weird, but alright,” he shrugged, watching as Minghao tossed the stone up and down. It sunk quickly back into his hand every time, and their eyes watched it silently.

“Well, hopefully he shows up,” Minghao finally said stiffly, sometime later as he finally let the die float down to the sand. “‘Cause by the looks of it, Seungcheol didn’t manage to convince the scary one to let us go.”

Hansol shivered at the memory. First, one of the other Land-Walkers, one with weird lenses on his face whom Seokmin called Seunghyun, had stood motionless in front of their tank for a solid 10 minutes or so, just...staring at them. 

Somehow, Hansol had managed to find the courage to stare right back. He didn’t know how Seunghyun was feeling, couldn’t read his eyes, but there was something in the set of jaw that said he was contemplating something. Hopefully, he’d help set them free. Seungcheol said that Seunghyun would help them.

Eventually, Minghao joined their silent stare-off, and Seunghyun looked between them slowly, searching for...something. Hansol could only hope he would be a friend, not a foe. 

And then, after those 10 minutes, Seunghyun turned away, looking up at Jun and Seungcheol, who were both trying very hard to look like they hadn’t been eavesdropping, and gave them a nod.

Then he just kind of walked away. Hansol didn’t know what to think of it. What had just happened?

He did not see Seunghyun any time after that, but Seungcheol and Seokmin looked marginally happier, so things must have gone alright.

And then they watched as Seungcheol and the scary Land-Walker, Seungri, Mingyu said his name was, start arguing right in front of them. Seungri’s eyes had been cold and dead and emotionless, while Seungcheol’s blazed with determined fire and fierce protectiveness. It was a contrast that left Hansol reeling at the sheer difference in their auras.

Apparently, it had come to a tie, because when Seungri walked off he didn’t look defeated, but Seungcheol didn’t either. In fact he looked more indignant than ever.

But when he’d shown up after-hours, he just looked...tired. He’d explained that Seungri had pretty much given him a hard no. He’d seemed so small, kind of crushed in a strange way, and Hansol couldn’t help but pat his knee to hopefully console him a little.

Judging from the way Seungcheol looked at him and Minghao, a new fire kindling in his pupils, his comforting had worked. Hansol’s hopes about hopefully getting out of the lab were both raised and lowered a little bit that night, and he could now say with some confidence that Seungcheol and Jun and Seokmin and Mingyu were trustworthy people.

But he didn’t know Seunghyun, and he definitely didn’t like Seungri (Minghao didn’t either), and their influence was important, according to Seungcheol. If they turned on him…

Well, then it was unlikely they’d ever get out of there. It was at times like that, that Hansol wished he had a voice half as powerful as Jeonghan’s. Jeonghan could flash Soonyoung a look and only say “please?” and he’d be stumbling over the currents to do whatever Jeonghan wanted. He himself was no stranger to the pulling power of Jeonghan’s voice, tugging and tugging at him until he obeyed. It was kind of scary and also kind of fascinating, but luckily, Jeonghan had never been anything but kind to him, treating him like a son.

Sometimes he wondered why Jeonghan was so determined to keep them together as a little family unit. It wasn’t unheard of for small groups of sirens to bond together, but Jeonghan almost seemed a teeny, tiny bit desperate sometimes. It was incredibly hard to notice if he wasn’t paying attention, but once, just once, he’d caught Jeonghan wandering the open ocean by himself, singing a song with a hint of loneliness in it. 

Hansol had been reminded of a whale’s song in that moment, strange and mysterious and just a little bit lonely. But Jeonghan, clever, smirky Jeonghan, could never be lonely, so he’d brushed it off. He’d actually kind of forgotten it had happened, but it came back to him now, as he wondered how Jeonghan was feeling.

...He’d probably get the tongue-lashing of a lifetime when he got back (he refused to think _if_ he got back), from both Jeonghan and Jihoon. He would be lucky if he ever got to go anywhere without Soonyoung hovering over his shoulder.

“I can see you thinking.” Minghao’s voice was unexpectedly gentle, but it jolted Hansol out of his thoughts all the same, and he jumped a little, shaking his head to clear the daze and offering a kind of half-assed smile that Minghao didn’t return.

“Sorry, just… I bet Jeonghan’s gonna yell at us when we get back,” he chuckled weakly, and Minghao snorted, a sound that was less amused and more just have a response at all.

“It’s not even worth betting on, of course he’s gonna yell at us. Actually, no, he’s gonna yell at _you_ ,” he huffed, poking him in the side. Hansol grimaced; it _was_ kind of his fault that they were trapped there, wasn't it…

Minghao’s face softened, and he reached out to put a gentle hand on Hansol’s arm.

“Oi, cheer up. You know he’s just a little overprotective. I forgave you already so stop looking so sad.” Hansol sighed, shrugging Minghao’s hand off.

“Ok I get that but like- I just- I just don’t want him to worry. I feel like I worry everyone else enough because I can’t sing as well as anyone else and I’m too curious for my own good and I know how much Jeonghan wants to keep us together so I can’t help but feel kind of shitty. Sorry about my problems but I just don’t wanna make anyone unhappy because of me,” he mumbled in one long breath, waving a hand around. 

Minghao was silent for a couple seconds, probably a little stunned at his outburst. That kind of just made Hansol feel worse but he refrained from saying anything else.

And then Minghao slapped his arm. He let out an indignant yelp at that, wheeling to get away from Minghao’s threateningly raised hand.

“What the hell was that for??” he huffed, eyebrows shooting into his hairline, but Minghao just frowned at him.

“Self-pity is stupid. No one’s blaming you for what the Land-Walkers did. Yeah, maybe you shouldn’t have been so close to the surface, but you’ve clearly learned your lesson, haven’t you? And for now we’re safe, and we sort of might be able to go home, and that’s what matters, right? I mean, at least we’re in one piece.”

“...That wasn’t very comforting, but thanks,” Hansol mumbled, wary of Minghao’s slowly lowering palm. The other siren just shrugged, looking down at the sand and flicking his tail to stir up some little clouds. Sometimes he’d do that and then bury himself in the sand, waiting until the cloud settled so he could rest comfortably. Hansol never got why he did that, but Minghao said it was comfortable. Hansol took his word for it; he didn’t want to be picking sand out of his scales for hours afterwards.

“And as for your singing skills, you could definitely be worse,” Minghao added. Hansol winced.

“I’m better at just talking fast than I am at singing,” he chuckled dryly, hugging himself and looking away. 

“Well Jihoon definitely can’t do low notes as well as you can. You’re our honorary baritone,” Minghao reasoned, voice mild. Hansol rolled his eyes.

“Chan and Soonyoung can sing low too,” he argued, and in response Minghao just held up a warning hand. Hansol took the hint and shut up.

“Yeah, but their voices don’t sound like yours. You have a...an accent, sort of. Just a little one when you go as low as you can. It sounds cool,” he hummed, still stirring up the sand with the tip of his tail. Hansol made a face, but he didn’t argue.

Because Minghao was right. Self-pity wasn’t going to get him anywhere, so he just had to toughen up and quit moping. He had to focus on figuring out a plan to get him and Minghao out of there.

Unfortunately, he had no idea how to do that. Fortunately, they had people on their side who knew the building better than they did. If Seungcheol and the others could pull through, then…

Well then just maybe they had a chance. Just maybe.

“Better?” Minghao asked gently, and Hansol gave a kind of off-handed shrug, flicking his pelvic and dorsal fins open and shut several times as he always did when he was restless or uncertain. “Don’t worry; I’m sure we’ll get to go home,” he continued, and Hansol shrugged again.

“I gotta admit, once we leave, I think I’m gonna miss those guys,” Hansol chuckled dryly, shooting a look out of the tank, to where Jun and Seokmin were tossing a red ball back and forth, slowly scooching their chairs further and further apart until the ball hit Jun in the neck on accident. “On second though, you might wanna stay so you can take care of him. Land-Walkers are such...flimsy-looking creatures.”

“You sound like Jihoon,” Minghao snorted, shaking his head. “And that’s incredibly worrying.” Hansol shared a smirk with the other siren as they watched Jun yell something indignantly at a wildly-cackling Seokmin, who had fallen off of his chair and was now on the floor, holding his stomach. He promptly had the ball thrown directly between his legs, and, judging by the shriek he let out, audible even through the glass, it wasn’t very comfortable. Hansol and Minghao winced in sympathy.

“Ok, note to self, no throwing things between the Land-Walker’s legs,” Hansol snorted, and Minghao laughed again. 

“Unless it’s for comedic relief,” he put in, and Hansol nodded sagely.

“Unless it’s for comedic relief,” he corrected. As if sensing their amusement, Seokmin glared at them through watery eyes. They just smirked at him until Jun begrudgingly helped him up from the floor, chucking the ball at his head. The two Land-Walkers continued bickering for a moment, then just sat down again, resuming their tossing of the ball, back and forth, back and forth, in vaguely hypnotizing movements.

“...Jun’s gonna get hit again, isn’t he,” Minghao muttered, watching the pretty Land-Walker lean back in his chair. Hansol snorted.

“Bet.”

“Alright, let’s wait then.”

“...”

“...”

“Yep, I was right,” Hansol snickered triumphantly when Jun clutched at his arm where the ball had bounced off. Minghao rolled his eyes and sighed a sigh that he only sighed when Chan had done something particularly stupid. It was Jun’s turn to glare at them.

“I am curious though,” Minghao hummed suddenly, peering through the glass, “Where’s Seungcheol? I haven’t seen him today either.” That made Hansol perk up and look around; Minghao was right.

“...That’s odd,” was all he found he had to say.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I PROMISE THE NEXT CHAPTER'S GONNA BE SO MUCH BETTER I PROMISE


	19. An Eye For An Eye

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seungcheol meets Jeonghan, properly this time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hehehehehheheh no more crumbs my children  
> now  
> you shall feAST

Seungcheol was no less than, well, extremely troubled. After his argument with Seungri, he honestly wasn’t sure what to do. He knew now that continuing to push wouldn’t help, and if he went too far, then he could get kicked off the project altogether. Which wouldn’t be ideal.

So he decided to get out of the lab and wander around a little bit, try to clear his mind and think of a proper idea. He had to step carefully, make sure that Seungri didn’t get too suspicious. If Hansol or Minghao somehow got hurt because of him, he didn’t know what he would do. He just had to hope that things would go alright.

He had more than just that on his mind. Jun and Seokmin had texted him multiple times, asking him where Mingyu was, who apparently had gone missing. Which didn’t make him feel any better. So now he had to worry about one of his friends going missing. 

Escaping for a little bit seemed like a good idea. He’d spent nearly every waking moment in the lab for a while anyway, so he figured he deserved a small break, maybe just an hour or two to himself before he went back to continue pondering his predicament.

As he was wandering the streets, he felt kind of hunched over, avoiding people’s eye and keeping to the walls where hopefully no one would stop him to talk. So far, it was working. 

Until someone bumped rather violently into his side as they rushed past, nearly knocking him over. He let out an indignant “hey!” but his voice trailed off when he saw who he’d bumped into.

It was the cat-eyed man who had sold him the shell, and who he’d seen in the bar next to his uncomfortable-looking friend. As always, there was a knowing smile on his pretty face, but his eyes were widened slightly in surprise. However, within a split second, his expression had become somewhat pleased in a weird way, as though he’d been _expecting_ Seungcheol to bump into him.

Seungcheol was disproportionately stunned. The man’s knowing, clever smile, combined with the fact that well, he was kind of really hot, left Seungcheol speechless as he stared for what was probably a rather inappropriate amount of time.

“Sorry about that,” the cat-eyed man offered, giving him an apologetic little smile. Seungcheol blinked several times. Why did he feel like his head had just been dunked underwater? His hands tingled and something in his chest tightened.

“Sor- yeah- sorry,” he finally stammered, still unable to think straight (take that how you will). “I just- I wasn’t looking where I was going, sorry…”

“Don’t worry about it,” the man hummed serenely, waving a dainty hand that Seungcheol wanted to hold. What was it with pretty boys and him making a fool of himself in front of them?? Could he be smooth, just for once? Please? “May I ask what’s gotten you so distracted?”

Now, normally, Seungcheol would have politely declined. His problems were his problems and they were kind of...secret.

But Seungcheol felt like he couldn’t lie, not to this man. Some part of him knew that if he lied the cat-eyed man would be able to tell. So he shrugged awkwardly.

“Some friends of mine kind of...got into trouble and I don’t know how to help them out. I want to, but I have no idea how.” Not a lie, but not something that would make him sound crazy. The cat-eyed man hummed, nodding and staying silent for a second or two. Then he spoke again, in his soft, honeyed voice.

“Y’know, I don’t know if it’s my place to say, but I find the pier by the lighthouse is a great place to think. I always find ideas there, no matter how big my problem,” he said lightly, a glint in his eyes. Seungcheol blinked. The lighthouse? There wasn’t really anything over there, was there?

“Alright,” he said anyway, nodding. “I’ll- I’ll go check it out. Thank you.”

“I hope you find what you’re looking for,” was all the other man chuckled, and Seungcheol fought the urge to shiver all over. 

“Y-yeah, thanks,” he mumbled again, looking down. The action caused the leather cord of the shell around his neck to shift, and he raised a hand to touch it. “I like the shell,” he offered hesitantly, feeling incredibly awkward. The cat-eyed man just chuckled again and Seungcheol thought it was as close to a siren song as a human voice could get.

“I’m glad. Keep it close, alright?” Instantly, Seungcheol nodded, one hand rubbing at the cord unconsciously. The cat-eyed man gave him a smile, full of unreadable emotions and something a little amused, and turned slowly. Seungcheol jumped.

“Hey, wait, what’s-!” He deflated; the man had already disappeared into the crowd, vanished as though he’d never been there at all. “...your name,” he mumbled, letting his hand drop from where he’d raised it. Great, first a siren, and now a mysterious pretty boy. He had the greatest luck with romance, didn’t he.

The seashell around his neck felt a little heavier, and he pulled it out of his shirt, staring at the tiny orange shell. It sat still and innocent in his palm, and after a second, he closed his fingers over it, performing a sharp about-face and walking towards the lighthouse. 

It sort of felt like something was tugging him there, pulling him closer to the water’s edge. He’d felt the same tug when he’d gone exploring _past_ the lighthouse, following tiny trails that seemed to open up before his feet. It had been kind of weird, but he’d continued anyway, until he reached that strange little house with an “open” sign leaning artfully in the window, where the cat-eyed man had given him the shell. 

That same tugging feeling was coming back as he walked closer and closer to the lighthouse. It wasn’t that scary in the day time, but he still shivered as he looked up at it, shoving his hands into his pockets even though it was quite warm outside. 

As he picked his way around the lighthouse, he found a little path leading around it, out to a low-standing pier poking out dangerously close to the water. It looked kind of unsteady, but hey, he was worried and what better place to sit than a wobbly-looking pier right behind an old abandoned lighthouse? 

So, like the smart, reasonable person he was, he sat down right on the end, took of his shoes, and dipped his feet into the water, staring down into the surprisingly clear depths. He could see tiny fish darting around near the sand, and he smiled a bit, though it held little real joy. 

What did he do now? Seunghyun had honestly been of little help, and Seungri was unbending in his ways. Seungcheol knew it would be stupid to simply break the sirens out of there, but at that point he was tempted to try something extreme, if only it would work. What other choice did he have?

He sighed. He didn’t really have any options, did he? Looking up at the sky, he worried his bottom lip between his teeth, debating the pros and cons of simply finding a way to break Hansol and Minghao out of the lab. Pros? He’d keep his promise. Cons? He might get arrested. Or shot. 

...Yeah, he was kind of stuck. What fun.

He sat there for a while, stewing in his dilemma, kicking his feet back and forth in the water. He looked back down into the ocean, and the seashell against his chest shifted. The cat-eyed man’s face popped up in his mind’s eye and he slipped the cord off of his neck, holding the shell in his open palm. It was small and unassuming, really, kind of ordinary and in no way special. 

It felt heavy to Seungcheol. Not physically, he knew it was light, but...something weighed it down, something he couldn’t place. He wondered how he hadn’t noticed it before. Now, it was practically pulling his hand into the water, the cord dangling right above the sea as if reaching for it. Seungcheol sighed, pulling his hand back close to his chest, staring at it for a few seconds.

Then he wound his arm back and threw the little shell as far out into the water as he could. The cord added a little flare to the arc of it’s flight, and Seungcheol watched it with careful eyes, not sure what to feel. Throwing the shell in just felt right. The way it was drawn to the water reminded him of how Hansol and Minghao wanted to go home. Well, if he could help one thing get back to where it was supposed to, he’d help. 

After the shell fell into the water with an inaudible splash, he sat back on his hands, feeling weirdly anxious, anticipating that he wasn’t even sure was going to happen. The cat-eyed man’s words kept circling in his mind; “I hope you find what you’re looking for.'' What did that mean? What was he even looking for? He didn’t know.

He sensed it first, rather than heard it: a tiny sound on the edges of his awareness. He straightened up a little, peering out into the water, but nothing disturbed the calm surface of the waves. He was unsettled.

Especially when the sound got louder. It was hauntingly familiar; he’d heard that noise only once before, and he’d never been able to get it out of his head.

“Siren song,” he whispered to himself, tensing to stand. However, he didn’t move, staying dead still. Why would a siren be so close to the shore? Wouldn’t that be dangerous for them? And why the heck was he still there???

The fact remained that he didn’t move. Not when he caught sight of a shadow in the clear water, not when the song got louder and clearer in his ears, filling him up with a sense of completeness. He relaxed into the song, easing the tension from his shoulders, and waited.

Yeah, this kind of stupidity was probably gonna get him killed one day. Still, he didn’t move. He just stayed still and relaxed as the shadow grew closer and closer, as the song got louder and louder, until Seungcheol could make out a streamlined body beneath the surface, distorted by the waves. He couldn’t look away.

The siren was close now, very close, just an arm’s length away from being able to touch his leg where it dangled off the pier. Seungcheol didn’t feel that scared; the siren song assured that. He just watched, kind of distantly curious. 

Long, tawny hair, a pale body, connected to a slender but powerful-looking bright red tail… Seungcheol blinked. Was this the siren he’d seen on the very first day, out over The Drop? No way.

But no, through the water, Seungcheol could see him coming closer, mouth moving, making those lovely sounds, and his face was as beautiful as Seungcheol remembered. Lips slightly parted, Seungcheol just stared as the siren finally ascended out of the water, both hands rising to grip onto the edge of the pier and pull himself up gracefully. Seungcheol instinctively parted his knees to make a space for him, and the siren leaned a little closer.

It might just have been the song he was singing, but the siren was truly one of the most beautiful creatures Seungcheol had ever seen. Pretty eyes, pretty cheekbones, pretty lips- pretty everything. Even the scales dotting his cheeks and trailing down his neck were interesting to look at and Seungcheol wanted to count each and every one with his lips.

And don’t even get him started on the siren’s voice. He could have gone on for hours. His head was completely filled with the sound of wordless, beautiful singing, and his entire body felt kind of light and floaty. He wanted to move forward, brush their lips together maybe just to test. Everything in his being was pulling him towards the siren, begging him to follow the lovely creature into the water.

Seungcheol’s breath hitched when he felt warm air ghosting over his neck. The siren was so close his skin tingled at their almost-contact, the tiny space between their bodies buzzing with electricity that made all the hairs on his arms stand up. 

There was a tiny part of his chest that kind of ached where the shell had used to rest against it.

And then the singing stopped, trailing off into a breathy sigh that made Seungcheol’s grip tighten painfully on the edge of the pier, splinters digging into his hands. There was an extremely tense silence, then-

“ _Listen up._ ” The siren’s voice suddenly resonated with a commanding power, and instantly Seungcheol was all ears. He physically could not disobey. His body would not let him. “I know what you have in that little lab of yours, Choi Seungcheol. You have taken something very precious to me and I want them back.”

It took a few seconds for it to click in Seungcheol’s song-addled brain. But when he did, he had the mental capacity to frown a little. 

“H-how-” He was cut off instantly by the siren moving closer, lips almost against his neck.

“A little kitten came and told me,” he hummed casually, and Seungcheol shuddered at the feel of words being murmured against his throat. “But that is not important. I just want my children back. You’ll help me, won’t you?” His voice was so tempting, sugared and breathy and Seungcheol’s every instinct was to say yes, to give in to this beautiful creature’s requests.

But...he didn’t know how. That one thought made him frown a little deeper.

“I’m- I’m sorry, I- I can’t talk about it-”

“There’s no one around but us, Cheolie. It’s just you and me. _Talk_.” It was not a suggestion or a request. It was an order and Seungcheol knew it.

“I- yes, we have the sirens, but- but I don’t know how to get them out. I want to, I really do, but I can’t right now,” he forced out, the words getting a little caught in his throat. 

A sort of soft, continuous hissing noise made him tense up even more, and he bit his lip at the anger he could start to sense from the siren’s whole form. His tail flicked wildly where it was still dangling in the water and his grip on the pier was causing the wood to splinter further.

"I could rip out your throat right now if I wished," the siren breathed against his neck, and Seungcheol did his best not to shiver. "I could drag you down to the ocean floor and let the pressure crush your bones like sea urchin spines. I'm going to give you one chance to bring my children back to me, and if you fail, then it will not be pretty."

Children? Hansol and Minghao? Were they related??

"They- they don't look anything like you-" he began in a weak stutter, unable to say much else. The siren hissed and he shut right up.

"Technicalities. They're my children to me, and _I want them back_. You took them from me, and I will take you from your friends if you can't bring them back. It's only fair." His voice was dangerous, and even when he wasn't singing, Seungcheol felt the insane pull to obey his words. He shuddered inwardly.

“I know how you humans tick. I know what feels good,” Seungcheol shivered as he felt a hand land on the inside of his left thigh, “and I know what hurts,” sharp nails dug into his leg, and he hardly dared to move, “so you better find a way.” The siren leaned closer to him, hand pressing on his thigh and lips against his neck, and Seungcheol was a weird combination of incredibly intimidated and just a teeny tiny bit turned on.

But he froze and went dead-still when he felt sharp fangs being pressed into the fragile skin of his throat. He didn’t move, didn’t dare to even breathe, lest he end up gaining some new gills of his own. He could literally feel the siren’s jaw trembling with held-back temptation to bite down, and Seungcheol could also feel his blood pulsing wildly against the siren’s lips, pressed to his neck along with his fangs. 

Then something must have changed, because the siren suddenly visibly deflated, and the hand on his thigh went back to holding the pier. Seungcheol’s head cleared and his eyes widened when the siren’s forehead just kind of thumped against his chest in a defeated sort of way, a soft, low sigh leaving him.

Seungcheol really couldn’t stop himself from hesitantly raising a hand to pet the siren’s head. His hair was damp but weirdly soft, even from the prolonged exposure to the salt water. 

“...’M name’s Jeonghan,” the siren mumbled, and Seungcheol’s eyes widened further. Jeonghan. So his elusive dream-haunter finally had a name. And a pretty one at that. Everything about him was pretty, it seemed.

Now he just had to find out the cat-eyed man’s name. Maybe he could go follow that trail again…?

Well, he could think about that later. For now, he had to focus on the fact that there was a siren just kind of half slumped on his lap between his legs and he looked very very sad and Seungcheol didn’t know what to do to comfort him. 

“...You alright?” he mumbled half-heartedly. Jeonghan made a weird noise that wasn’t quite an affirmation but not quite one of disagreement. 

“Keep petting me,” was the only thing he heard. Huffing out a soft laugh, he complied, and Jeonghan said nothing except for one small, half-purr that trailed off nearly the moment he let it out. 

Eventually though, Jeonghan pulled back, and his red eyes seemed to glow. 

“I just want my family back, so I want you to make me a deal, Seungcheol,” he said slowly, very deliberately. However, despite his measured, forceful tone, Seungcheol felt completely clear-headed, and he stared down at Jeonghan with a mix of fascinated curiosity and wary apprehension. Just what would Jeonghan ask of him?

“An eye for an eye,” Jeonghan whispered, getting up close to his face. “You took Hansol and Minghao from me, and I will take something from you until you give them back. I think that shell you threw into the water will suffice.” Seungcheol frowned at that; he honestly didn’t even know why he’d thrown it in, especially when the cat-eyed man told him to keep it close.

“Trust me, you’ll want it back later. I’ll hold onto it for you as collateral for now,” Jeonghan continued casually. Seungcheol bit his lower lip; yes, he wanted to help Hansol and Minghao, but…

“...What’s in it for me?” he asked warily. Jeonghan turned a clever, enticing smile on him, and he didn’t even have to open his mouth for Seungcheol to want to bow down before him.

“If you help me, then I will share something of mine with you that is very precious to me. I think you will like it.” Ok, not helpful, but alright.

“...And if I can’t?” Jeonghan’s smile turned thin, showing needle-sharp fangs that made the human shiver.

“Then I will come and draw you out into the ocean and show you the most beautiful sights. Then I will kill you in the slowest of ways so you know that you will never see the ones you love again,” he said slowly, quietly, dangerously. “And _then_ I will take out your eye. It’s only fair, after all.”

Seungcheol swallowed roughly. It looked like he didn’t have a choice. He’d _have_ to find a way to get Hansol and Minghao out of the lab…

Or possibly die trying.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *kronk voice*  
> oh yeah, it's all coming together


	20. In Your Small Eyes, I'm Probably Still A Kid

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seungkwan goes through a brief crisis, then goes home to an even bigger crisis.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> just Kwan having a breakdown, no biggie

After Jeonghan had left, Seungkwan was quite shell-shocked for a considerable amount of time; he still sort of felt like he was dreaming. Who could blame him? He’d just seen a real siren! And talked to one!! People would have killed to be in his place, he knew. And the whole thing with Joshua being a magician wasn’t exactly an easy pill to swallow either. Thankfully Wonwoo remained faithfully Wonwoo-like and didn’t sing haunting songs or start making things fly around the room.

Actually, that was a lie. Wonwoo became very un-Wonwoo-like over the strangest thing: Mingyu. After they went back to the library, the older man fussed over Mingyu relentlessly, constantly pestering Joshua to ask when he would wake up. Joshua would just tell him to let Mingyu wake up on his own, but Wonwoo was never satisfied if the way he grumbled to himself said anything.

So yeah. Seungkwan was kind of stunned into silence for the rest of the day. Joshua gave him a cup of tea that he didn’t drink, and perhaps trying to be helpful in the only way he knew how, Wonwoo fluttered awkwardly over him for a moment before just kind of leaving a book in his lap like a very anxious dog of some sort. Seungkwan didn’t read the book, but he appreciated the thought. 

Even an hour later, he was still silent, staring at the same spot on the floor. Joshua had sat down on the counter, sipping at his own tea and watching him with a half-tilted head and curious eyes. Wonwoo had disappeared for a bit, but Seungkwan didn’t really notice it on account of, well, being kind of stunned. 

How was he supposed to take it all in?

“...You alright?” Joshua finally asked, voice back to it’s normal softness. Seungkwan slowly, slowly looked up at him.

“No! No I’m not!” he laughed hysterically, throwing his hands up. “How the hell am I supposed to be alright with- with all this?!” He gestured wildly to Joshua’s whole being, and the cat-eyed man raised an eyebrow.

“I can’t blame you for being surprised, but I’m just gonna tell you to get used to it. I like using magic, so…” He raised a hand, snapping his fingers, and a candle 10 feet away burst into life, sparkling merrily.

Seungkwan let out another hysterical little chuckle, looking back down at his hands.

“And- and the whole thing with that siren? With Jeonghan? How does- how does that even _work_!?” Ok, maybe a little bit of a personal question, but he couldn’t hold anything back now.

Joshua hummed. “Another story for another time. All I’ll say is that Lady Luck favored me on a day I thought myself incredibly misfortunate.”

Well what the heck did that mean. Seemed Joshua would be as cryptic as ever… Not helpful.

“And...and him? How does he come into the picture?” he muttered, looking over at Mingyu’s still-sleeping form. At that, Joshua smiled a smile that looked slightly predatory.

“Actually, he came to us first. Me and Wonwoo went to the bar in town because I had a gut feeling and he walks up to us on a silver platter, totally smitten for our resident bookworm. A hop skip and a jump later and Wonwoo calls him up and he’s perfectly ready to set up a date.”

“...Seems kinda unfair to him though,” Seungkwan mumbled, giving the tall man a kind of sympathetic look. But Joshua only laughed.

“Oh, don’t worry. When he wakes up he won’t remember a thing. But I dare say that Wonwoo might like him more than he’s willing to admit, so maybe we might keep him around. He is pretty easy on the eyes, isn’t he?”

“...No comment. And…ok, I guess. He’ll wake up soon, right?”

“He’ll wake up when he wakes up. Y’know usually they get up a little quicker,” Joshua hummed, sounding utterly nonchalant. Seungkwan gave him a rather alarmed look, but they both looked back over when Mingyu let out a loud snore. Seungkwan burst into surprised laughter, too high-strung to hold back his emotions.

“Well, now he’s just sleeping for the hell of sleeping,” Joshua snorted. “I approve.”

“You think he’ll wake up if we stack books on top of him?” Seungkwan grinned, picking up the one in his lap. Joshua shared a smirk with him.

“Only one way to find out, eh?”

And that was how, very carefully, the two of them started piling books on top of Mingyu’s lap, stopping strategically every time he showed signs of stirring.

“...What are you two doing?”

Immediately, Seungkwan whirled around, finger to his mouth, hissing for Wonwoo to shut up. The older man, who had walked back in with a box of what smelled like fried rice and something citrusy, gave them a raised eyebrow, but kept his mouth shut.

“...If you could not, that would be great,” he mumbled not a minute later, moving to disassemble their mini-tower of books. Seungkwan huffed at him, but stepped back, sharing a small grin with Joshua at how Wonwoo fussed over the beanpole still sleeping in the chair.

Eventually though, Wonwoo must have felt their amused gazes because he turned back around to glare at them, hands on his hips.

“...What’s so funny?”

“Nothing,” Seungkwan hummed innocently, and Wonwoo squinted.

“You’re a bad liar, y’know?” Seungkwan fought the urge to snort.

“Whatever you say, man,” he snickered, and Wonwoo turned his judgemental gaze onto Joshua, who merely sipped at his tea, perfectly serene smile on his face. Wonwoo squinted a little louder.

“Ok, your weird antics aside, how’re we gonna do this? We can’t exactly waltz into SVT labs without a plan,” he huffed, and Seungkwan deflated. That was the part he was worried about. Even Joshua’s smile fell slightly.

“Well, Jeonghan’s probably roped Seungcheol into something, so for now I’m not too worried,” he hummed, looking at his watch.

“I’ve been meaning to ask, who’s Seungcheol?” Wonwoo piped up, and Seungkwan nodded curious agreement. Joshua smiled a little more.

“He’s...important. And quite the looker if I do say so myself,” he chuckled, Seungkwan and Wonwoo exchanged a tired look.

“Don’t let Jeonghan catch you saying that,” Wonwoo huffed, but Joshua just laughed.

“Oh, he would agree with me,” he snickered, shaking his head. “But back to the plan. Give Jeonghan until tomorrow morning and I’m sure he’ll have... _convinced_ Seungcheol to do something.”

“And by _convinced_ , you mean _threatened_ ,” Seungkwan guessed. Joshua just gave him a somewhat unsettling smile. “Still, I want to do something. Is there anything I actually _can_ do?” At that, Joshua’s expression turned more thoughtful. Wonwoo spoke up first, opening his box of fried rice and poking at it with a plastic fork.

“Do you know anyone who works at the lab?” Seungkwan shook his head. “Bummer. I was hoping your royal status could help us out.”

“My mother monitors practically everything I do. Going into the SVT labs would be incredibly suspicious,” Seungkwan muttered in a grumble, glaring down at the old floorboards.

“Well, we have...some connections,” Joshua hummed, sending a very deliberate glance in Mingyu’s direction. Wonwoo moved a little closer to him, almost protective. “I say we wait until Jeonghan tells us what happened with Seungcheol first, then we plan.”

“Sounds good,” Wonwoo piped up quickly, once again moving a little closer to Mingyu. Seungkwan fought the urge to snort. 

“So...when is Jeonghan going to come back?” he hummed. Joshua shrugged and Seungkwan blinked at him.

“If he does his job right, then I should be able to meet him tomorrow. I get the feeling Jeonghan and Seungcheol are going to meet very soon. And Jeonghan can be very...persuasive.”

“...Is Jeonghan gonna like, put him under a spell or something?” Wonwoo asked carefully, and Joshua laughed.

“Oh no, nothing quite that primitive. Jeonghan’s going to make him a deal he can’t refuse,” he said simply, a smile curling his lips. Seungkwan shuddered and made a mental note to never get on Joshua or Jeonghan’s bad side.

“And that deal would be…?” Joshua’s cat-like eyes narrowed, gleaming in the dim light of the shop.

“Either Seungcheol helps us,” he began slowly, “or he’ll find out what it means to endanger the family of a powerful siren.”

Yeah. Seungkwan made sure to _never_ make either of them mad.

“Ok, so, threatening Seungcheol aside, what’re we gonna do about Mingyu? I don’t- I don’t just wanna leave him here,” Wonwoo pouted, sending the still-asleep man a look.

“Well, I suppose I could just wake him up now,” Joshua said mildly. “I mean, depends on how much you want him to remember.”

“What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas,” Wonwoo mumbled, and Joshua laughed.

“Indeed,” he hummed, walking over to Mingyu’s sleeping form. For a second, Seungkwan thought he was going to perform some kind of intricate spell, but all he did was put a hand on Mingyu’s shoulder and shake him gently.

“Oi, wake up,” the cat-eyed man hummed, and the other two watched as Mingyu jolted awake with a sort of weird gasping noise, like a fish out of water. Seungkwan couldn’t help but snort. 

“Morning,” he chuckled dryly, and Mingyu stared at them, wide-eyed.

“Wha-what just happened? Where am I? Wonwoo? What happened?” He sounded panicked, and Seungkwan felt a little sympathetic, but the expression on his face was a little too hilarious to be totally serious.

“Relax, Gyu, you just fell asleep. I showed you this little book shop, then you got tired and decided it would be a fantastic idea to take a nap,” Wonwoo said dryly, sarcasm dripping from his tone. Still, underneath it, Seungkwan could sense something else, and even he was inclined to believe Wonwoo’s story. Joshua looked a little proud.

“Oh, uh, ok,” Mingyu mumbled, sitting up and rubbing his eyes. “Who’re you two?”

“Joshua, and Seungkwan,” Wonwoo said primly, pointing at each of the two respectively. Mingyu muttered a half-assed hello, still rubbing his eyes as if to clear them from some sort of fog. Then he paused, squinting at Seungkwan, and the prince blinked at him, raising an eyebrow.

“Wait...aren’t you the prince?” At that, Seungkwan let out another snort.

“The one and only,” he chuckled dryly. Mingyu stared at him,wide-eyed.

“...Oh. Uh..hello, your highness.”

“Seungkwan is fine.”

“If I may ask why we’re all sitting here…?”

“Well this is my favorite book shop, and Wonwoo and Joshua work here, so…”

It took several minutes for Mingyu to stop looking so scattered, and when he finally sat up, he still looked a bit confused.

“What time is it, even?” he huffed, glancing at his watch. HIs eyes widened comically. “Fuck, I missed work- the guys are gonna be so mad at me,” he muttered, standing up on wobbly legs.

“Hey, hey, relax. Take it easy. Take it slow. Don’t worry,” Joshua hummed serenely, and the whole aura in the little book shop seemed to relax, warming and calming down. Seungkwan felt his muscles loosening and he wondered just how far Joshua’s magical prowess went.

“Drink some water when you get there. You were asleep for a pretty long time,” he advised lightly, and Mingyu nodded somewhat absently, eyes glazed over.

“Y-yeah, alright, ok. Thanks, I guess. See ya,” he mumbled distantly as he stumbled over to the door and walked outside. Wonwoo hesitated for a second, then, after throwing Joshua a look, scurried after the tall man, probably to make sure he didn’t fall over on his way back to the lab.

When they were alone, Seungkwan squinted at Joshua. “You sure you ain’t a siren?” he huffed, crossing his arms. Joshua laughed.

“I assure you, I am not. I have magic that can give my voice siren-like properties though. But typically I don’t like using those kinds of spells ‘cause after a while it just ends up making my throat hurt. I leave all the singing to Jeonghan.” He shot Seungkwan a wink and the prince did his best not to shudder.

Joshua definitely was a strange one.

* * *

He left the little shop when the sun was about to rest on the horizon, and he sighed to himself, reluctant at the idea of going back home to his emotionally-distant father and over-protective mother. He wished he was just a normal citizen, able to go where he pleased and do what he wished. For having one of the best educations in the city, he sure didn’t have a use for it.

Not really sure why, he decided to sneak in through the tunnel route. It was just more fun that way anyway. So, peeking around carefully, he wiggled under the gap in the fence, blessing the fact that it was still there. He paused only to brush the dust off of his shirt, then popped up, once again looking around warily.

It looked like no one was there. Good. Feeling more cheerful and lucky by the minute, he darted over to the part of the yard where the panel was and dug in the dirt for a moment, brushing it aside until he found the smooth metal of the device. There was a small number pad on it, and Seungkwan had only gotten the combination because it was on the underside of the tunnel.

Muttering the combination under his breath to himself, he bounced his knee eagerly as he waited for the panel to slide aside, and when it finally did, he quickly wiggled down the chute, grinning as the tunnel grew dark behind him.

Now, he knew he only had a short window of time before his mother inevitably came calling for him, so he crawled through the tunnel as quickly as he could, stopping only once when a bit of loose dirt got into his eye. Blinking back the pain, he kept going, until he could reach up and feel a loose piece of smooth wood.

Slowly, slowly, he lifted the wood aside, peeking out of the tiny slit to check if anyone was there. He cursed inwardly when he saw feet moving around, going back and forth before stopping and resting in a chair. Seungkwan recognized a pair of his father’s slippers and rolled his eyes.

But now he was kind of stuck. He could either go back out the tunnel and risk getting caught outside, or he could wait for his father to leave.

Problem was, there was no room for him to turn around in the tunnel; it was sort of a one-way thing. So, he was forced to sit back and slide the wood back into place, panicking about how to get inside without revealing the tunnel. Was it even possible?

He didn’t know, but the fact remained that he had nowhere to go unless he somehow backed all the way out of the tunnel, which he didn’t really want to do, so it looked like he had to wait. Maybe if he was lucky his father would simply pick a book and leave.

Around five minutes later, he checked again, but his father’s feet had not left the chair, tapping absently against the ground, and Seungkwan fought the urge to curse aloud. Maybe if he moved _really_ slowly, he could hide behind a bookshelf…?

No, that would be way too dangerous. He wouldn’t risk anyone else knowing about the tunnel if he could help it.

“Alright, alright, calm down Seungkwan, no biggie. You’re just stuck in a tunnel for an indefinite amount of time. No biggie,” he whispered to himself, shaking his head and patting his cheeks. No biggie.

* * *

He didn’t know how long he waited, but it must have been a while, because when he peeked back out again, the library was dark, and he could see a couple candles flickering in the edges of his vision. How was his father still sitting there reading?

And then he heard a snore. Hardly daring to believe it, Seungkwan hesitantly lifted the panel a tiny bit more, and rejoiced wildly inside at seeing his father’s closed eyes, face slack. Fighting the urge to whoop, he quickly and quietly climbed out of the tunnel, sliding the panel back into place behind him, making sure it blended in perfectly with the wood around it. 

Now he just had to get into his room before his mother caught him. Easy. He was in the home stretch!

...Until he opened the door to his bedroom. His eyes widened when he saw his mother sitting perched on his bed, and expression of unreadable anger on her face. 

“...Mom?” he greeted awkwardly, giving a fake grin. She just huffed at him.

“Seungkwan, I’m very disappointed in you,” she began, and Seungkwan blinked. A guilty cough sounded to his right and he looked over to see Minho standing there, smiling sheepishly. 

Fuck, he’d forgotten about Minho.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> heheh  
> Also the title of this chapter was taken directly from SVT's 20 so  
> I'm so clever aren't I


	21. Tell Me Everything You Know

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hansol finds out that Seungcheol found out about Jeonghan, and he and Minghao have a talk concerning one particular moon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> more crumbs?

“Oi, look who just walked in,” Minghao hummed, startling Hansol from his half-dozing state into looking around at the door. He raised an eyebrow when he saw Mingyu stumbling in, looking rather dazed.

“...About time,” he huffed, and Minghao snorted. 

“He looks like he just snorted puffer fish venom,” he chuckled, and Hansol rolled his eyes in vague amusement, swimming over to the glass and tapping it to get Mingyu’s attention. The handsome Land-Walker didn’t even look over, just kind of sank into a chair a few tail-lengths away and fell still, looking like he’d just seen the shock of his life.

“...You think he’s ok?” Minghao muttered, and Hansol shrugged.

“We can always ask later,” he reasoned, and Minghao shrugged as well. Still, the longer Hansol looked at Mingyu, the more confused he became, because the way the older’s eyes were glazed him over reminded him of the way Soonyoung looked whenever Jeonghan used his voice for petty things. Had Mingyu seen a siren?

Well, he could always ask later.

* * *

Later that day, Mingyu had barely moved from his chair at all, still staring blankly into nothing like he was trying to recall a distant memory. It was very strange Land-Walker behavior, Hansol thought, unused to such apathy from the normally bright, dolphin-like, slightly clumsy but well-meaning Mingyu.

Hansol wanted to question him. He hadn’t seen Seungcheol around for a while, but Seokmin and Jun were there, and they sent Mingyu looks that were just as concerned, if not also a tiny bit amused. Hansol often tried to catch their eyes, but for some reason, they didn’t look at him or Minghao for almost the whole day. It was concerning and annoying and Hansol just wanted to know what the hell was going on.

“...Do you think he’s dead or something?” Minghao asked airily, flicking his tail in Mingyu’s direction. Hansol snorted.

“Hopefully not. I wanna know what he’s thinking about- oh, he’s moving?” He perked up as Mingyu finally, finally moved, shaking his head violently as though trying to get water out of his hair. He and Minghao both swam over to the glass, eyes curious as Mingyu looked around, eyes wide like he expected someone to jump out and attack him. Hansol and Minghao exchanged a confused look.

Then Mingyu stood up on shaky legs, wobbling back and forth for a second before running his hands roughly through his hair, tapping his cheeks sharply. He put his face in his hands for a second, and reemerged looking dazed, glancing around again. Then he promptly walked off, one hand on his hip, the other in his hair, lips set into a frown.

“...That was strange,” Minghao hummed. Hansol nodded.

“Weird. Well, Land-Walkers _are_ very strange,” he mumbled, watching Mingyu go with a mix of disappointment and burning curiosity. Just what was causing Mingyu to be like that? Was he alright?

He saw Seokmin walking by and quickly rapped his knuckles against the glass, which finally got the Land-Walker’s attention. Seokmin hurried over, a question in his eyes. Hansol pointed at the door where Mingyu had just left through, and Seokmin followed his finger, not moving for a second.

Then he simply shrugged, shaking his head and holding up his hands in a simple “I don’t know” motion.

“Looks like he doesn’t know any more than we do,” Minghao mumbled, and Hansol sighed, nodding to Seokmin, who nodded back before bustling off, grabbing a clipboard before following Mingyu out the door. 

“Seungcheol’s gone too,” Hansol pointed out, and Minghao hummed, arching backwards in the water to grab his tail, creating a circle in the water for a moment before letting go. He stayed silent for a second, floating stomach-up, and Hansol watched him.

“...We should make a plan to get out of here. Soon. There’s a blood moon coming up, and you know what a blood moon means-”

“Yes, I know what a blood moon means,” Hansol mumbled, cutting him off. Minghao sighed softly, putting a hand on his shoulder.

Blood moons. They were important, especially to younger sirens. On nights when the full moon ran red, their primal instincts would awaken, their songs would grow stronger, and oftentimes they lost themselves in the need to hunt, to feed, to drag helpless souls into the water to their doom. It was an uncontrollable urge, and Jeonghan always kept them far, far below the surface when a blood moon occurred, which was probably the best for all of them. Hansol never wanted to be around the surface when a blood moon happened, but he could always feel it in his bones.

Even now, he could feel a tugging behind his ribs, a heavy, pulling presence that never fully went away. Judging from the way Minghao’s pelvic fins flicked, he could feel it too.

Hansol didn’t want to hurt any of the Land-Walkers, but there was no telling what they’d do if they hung around on the night of the blood moon. They had to get out before then, and they’d need to warm the Land-Walkers of what could happen.

“It’ll be ok,” Minghao hummed, but Hansol somehow had trouble believing him. He just sighed, sinking to sit on the bottom of the tank. Hopefully, hopefully, Minghao would be right.

* * *

It was late by the time Seungcheol burst in, and like Mingyu, he looked dazed and confused and lost, wandering around aimlessly for a while before settling in the same chair Mingyu had sat down in. Hansol and Minghao exchanged another look.

“...Is that like, gonna be a thing now?” Minghao asked with a raised eyebrow, and Hansol chuckled, once again knocking sharply on the glass. It didn’t have much effect, but Jun walking up to Seungcheol and putting a hand on his shoulder did. Seungcheol jumped up, grabbing Jun by the shoulders, talking very fast. Jun tried to talk over him, but ultimately failed, and eventually shrugged and walked off.

Hansol’s eyes widened slightly when Seungcheol looked directly at them, his gaze kind of worried and unreadable. He paced for a while, and when Jun, Mingyu, and Seokmin finally filed back in, he locked the doors behind them, talking quickly for a second before hopping onto the platform Hansol knew would take them to the top of the tank.

“...Well, might as well go see what’s got his fins in a twist,” Minghao shrugged, and Hansol nodded.

“Think it’s something important?” he hummed as they swam to the top.

“I mean it must be, judging by how frantic he looks,” Minghao pointed out, shrugging again and folding his arms. While they waited for the lid to open, Hansol could start to hear worried, confused voices, and he had to remember to switch to understanding the Land-Walker language.

Seungcheol was already kneeling by the lip of the tank, and before Hansol could even open his mouth, he spoke.

“Why didn’t you tell me about Jeonghan?” At that, Hansol opened his mouth, found he had no words, and closed it again. Why did Seungcheol look so distraught? So...so...embarrassed?

“I-” he began, but again, he found no words. For several seconds he stayed silent. “I wanted to keep them safe,” he finally mumbled, and it was true. He didn’t want any more of his pod, his family, to get captured. If he could make it look like he and Minghao were the only two sirens in the whole ocean to keep Jeonghan and Soonyoung and Jihoon and Chan safe, he’d do it.

He glanced back up at Seungcheol, a little bit defiant. “Do you blame me for not wanting to reveal them?” he huffed. Seungcheol stared at him.

“N-no, but- I just- kind of a big thing to keep secret,” he chuckled weakly. Hansol didn’t think it was funny.

“How do you know who Jeonghan is anyway?” He raised an eyebrow, and Seungcheol flushed for some reason.

“I- I went down to the pier by the lighthouse, and he kind of...came up and threatened to kill me if I didn’t help get you guys out of here,” he mumbled, and Hansol’s brows furrowed. Why would Jeonghan risk going up to the surface?

“I hate to interrupt, but...who the heck are you guys talking about?” Jun piped up.

“Jeonghan,” Seungcheol and Hansol said at the same time. They exchanged a look and Seungcheol gestured for him to speak. Hansol sighed, looking at Minghao, who so far had probably not understand a word.

“Seungcheol knows about Jeonghan. Should I just tell them everything now?” he clicked uneasily. Minghao’s eyes widened.

“...I think you should. If it’ll help us get out of here, then maybe we can keep them safe too,” he encouraged, and Hansol nodded, turning back to the Land-Walkers.

“Jeonghan is...one of my family. Like Minghao. We aren’t related but he’s basically our self-proclaimed mom,” he explained, and Jun made a fond noise. “But don’t underestimate him. Jeonghan is, above all things...powerful, for lack of a better word,” he added delicately, and the fond look fell off of Jun’s face comically quickly.

“Jeonghan was the one who found me and Minghao. We were both orphans, and he kind of took us in, along with three other sirens. There’s Jeonghan, Soonyoung, Jihoon, Minghao, me, and Chan. Jeonghan was the one who kind of gathered us all together.”

“Why? I didn’t think sirens were sociable creatures,” Seokmin cut in, face curious. Hansol opened his mouth, then paused. Honestly, he didn’t really know how to answer that.

“I...don’t know. I’ve never asked. I think he just likes to have people around him. Also, it isn’t super rare for sirens to form familial pods, just a bit uncommon. We’ve seen 7- and 8-member pods before, right?” He looked at Minghao, repeating the question in their language, and the other siren nodded.

“Yeah, like Junmyeon’s little posse,” he hummed, bobbing his head.

“And Bang Chan too, right? Anyway,” he turned back to the Land-Walkers, “that’s...that’s it. It’s just us. I didn’t want to say anything because I didn’t want them to get hurt. Please understand.”

Seungcheol was silent for several seconds, and the desperation faded from his gaze.

“...Yeah, I get it. I just...Jeonghan kind of threatened to take out my eye.”

“Jeonghan’s always liked looking at people’s eyes, for some reason,” Hansol nodded, thinking back to when he’d first met Jeonghan, and the older siren had cupped his face and just sort of looked into his eyes for a while before exclaiming “pretty!” and tugging him into a hug (looking back on it now, it was a very strange interaction).

Seungcheol suddenly deflated and sat back with a sigh, waving a hand. “So tell us about your pod. If you want.” He seemed to be stalling something, asking silently for time to think, and Hansol was willing to give him that chance.

“Well, Jeonghan’s the oldest. He’s...a weird mix of motherly and intimidating. He always tells us not to go to the surface, but, as you can see, I didn’t listen very well. Which is kind of strange though, because I know Jeonghan goes to the surface often, and not to hunt.” He frowned at that, but shrugged it aside; that wasn’t super important.

“Yeah. He’s pretty and will threaten you, so stay on his good side. Luckily Soonyoung’s a lot more light-hearted. I think you’d like him,” he directed at Seokmin, thinking of how both of them possessed the same kind of silly humor and wild energy. Seokmin grinned and he offered a small smile back. 

“Jihoon is...kind of scary. He’s small but he’s capable of biting, so stay on his good side too. He ‘n Soonyoung are mated, but he sure doesn’t act like it. They butt heads a lot but I know they love each other. Anyway, small body, lots of anger.”

“Pocket rocket,” Jun hummed. Hansol blinked.

“...Sure. Anyway, you know me ‘n Minghao, and Chan is the youngest. He’s pretty smart and he’s very...what’s the word...ambitious? Determined? He’s the kind of kid who never lets anything get him down,” he tried, shrugging. “Lots of energy, lots of sass. He’s kind of adorable when it comes down to it, but if you call him cute he’s either gonna hit you or encourage you to go on.” He shrugged again, smiling at the thought of Chan’s sarcastic sense of humor. 

He missed Chan. He missed all of them. His smile fell at the thought of his pod, and he barely felt Minghao putting a hand on his shoulder. 

He shook his head; now was not the time to be getting sentimental. He had to get out of there.

“Anyway, we need to get out of here, and soon,” he said quickly, looking at them all. “There’s- there’s a blood moon coming up, and we can’t be in here when it happens.”

“Why?” Jun asked, his brow furrowing. Hansol exchanged a look with Minghao uneasily, wringing his hands.

“Well, let’s just say that if we get even one opportunity to use our voices, we will. Blood moons...bring out the worst in us. The...the animal part takes over, and all we can think of just...feeding.”

“...Oh,” Mingyu mumbled, and it’s the first thing he’s said all day.

“Speaking of getting out of here, where were you all day?” Seokmin huffed, looking at Mingyu. Mingyu’s expression, if possible, goes even more confused.

“I...can’t really remember, honestly,” he murmured, rubbing his eyes. That made everyone look at him. “I can’t!” he said again, a touch more defensively. “I was walking around talking to some pretty guy and then I think I talked to the prince, and then...then I can’t remember anything. My head hurts if I try to remember.”

Hansol blinked. “That’s weird.”

“No shit Sherlock,” Seungcheol snorted.

“Who’s Sherlock?”

“...Don’t worry about it. Mingyu, you sure you can’t remember?” The tall Land-Walker nodded, still rubbing his eyes, and Hansol blinked between them for a second.

“...What’s a prince?” he asked curiously, and all the Land-Walkers stared at him, eyes wide.

“You don’t know what a prince is?” Seokmin huffed incredulously. Hansol shook his head.

“Is it like...some kind of food?” At that, Jun burst into laughter, which didn’t make Hansol feel better.

“No, no, a prince is the son of a king. A monarch. Someone who rules over everyone else,” Seungcheol explained through his giggles. Hansol blinked.

“...Oh. That’s kinda weird. Us sirens usually just live independently,” he explained. Jun wiped away an imaginary tear.

“Ah, yes, prince Seungkwan. Bless his heart. May he live a long, happy, and boring life.”

“Hey, don’t be mean, I’ve heard he’s a good person. Haven’t you seen him running around town, talking to every old man and woman who says hello to him? The kid’s the light of the town,” Seungcheol chided gently, a grin on his face. “Seungkwan’s a good kid. I think you’d like him if you met him,” Seungcheol added to Hansol, who nodded absently. He didn’t want any other Land-Walkers to know about him and Minghao, but if Seungcheol said he was a good person, then he was probably a good person.

“Anyway-”

“Hansol, if you say ‘anyway’ one more time, I’m going to close the lid.”

“...Sheesh, sorry Jun,” he mumbled, shrinking back. “But we should really find a way to get out of here. The blood moon’s coming up soon, maybe two, three weeks from now?” He looked down at his chest, trying to gauge the tugging sensation there. “It would be best if we were out of this place and in the ocean before then. I can’t- I can’t guarantee we’ll be able to control ourselves if the blood moon hits while we’re with you,” he mumbled, and the Land-Walkers exchanged a glance.

Seungcheol bit his lip uneasily.

“I- I want to help you, I really do, trust me, but I have no idea _how_ to. If I move you, Seungri’s gonna get mad and suspicious, so that’s kind of out of the question.”

Hansol deflated; that was a reasonable concern.

Then he jumped when he heard a beeping noise, coming from Mingyu’s back pocket. He pulled out his phone (Hansol still didn’t really get how it worked), squinting at it, and his lips tilted into a thoughtful frown.

“...Let’s go down to the pier tomorrow. I get the feeling we’ll find some answers there,” he mumbled as though he was in some kind of trance, and Seungcheol’s eyes widened slightly. Hansol looked between them, and Jun huffed, putting his hands on his hips.

“Well, why not? Let’s do it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry if this isn't satisfying at all I promise things are gonna amp up soon


	22. Everyone, Meet Everyone Else

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Finally, everyone gets introduced to everyone else (almost everyone, anyway).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope this is satisfying

Seungcheol felt kind of bad for leaving Hansol and Minghao in the tank while he walked down to the pier the next day, but it wasn’t exactly like he could pick them up and take them with him, so he just had to cut his losses and make sure he remembered everything so he could tell them later. He was pretty sure they’d be pretty happy to hear about what Jeonghan said anyway.

Beside him, Jun and Seokmin were talking very quietly under their breath to each other, and Mingyu was trailing behind them, more interested in looking than talking. Seungcheol was both kind of glad they were there and also a little worried. How would they react? What would they say?

Well, there was really only one way to find out, so with a sigh, he made his way around the old, dilapidated lighthouse, a bit surprised to see some people already at the end.

He was even more surprised to see what looked like the prince, Mingyu’s boy from the bar, and the pretty shopkeeper with the knowing smile who had directed him to the pier in the first place, sitting with his feet in the water. He couldn’t help but think of what a strange group they must have made.

Especially when he spotted a flash of bright red in the water. His eyes widened when he saw Jeonghan’s weirdly familiar smirk, and he had to remind himself that yes, this was all real. It felt like some kind of fever dream, but when he saw a long-nailed hand rise out of the water, waving at him, he forced himself to shake his head and walk over, trying not to balk at the stares he was getting.

“Hello, Seungcheol,” the pretty, cat-eyed man who sold him the shell hummed. Seungcheol decided against asking how the man knew his name.

“Uh...hi. I didn’t realize there’d be so many people,” he offered awkwardly, looking around.

“There are more of us,” said a new voice, coming from the water, and Seungcheol looked down when he saw three new sirens pop up from under the surface. Two of them had sharp eyes, and the other looked rather young.

“...Oh wow,” Seungcheol heard Jun whisper behind him, and he sympathized completely.

“We should hurry up and introduce ourselves so we can think of a plan,” the prince said, sounding weirdly anxious, and Jeonghan nodded. Seungcheol noticed that the siren had his hands on either side of the pretty man’s knees, and that they were very close together. It made for a pretty picture, but he immediately shut that thought down, looking away.

“I’m Seokmin!” Seokmin piped up excitedly, as friendly as always. Seungcheol would have shaken his head but he couldn’t deny that it eased the tension a little.

“I’m Jun, and this is Mingyu,” Jun hummed next, gesturing to himself and then to Mingyu, who was staring at the foxy-faced man openly.

“I’m Seungcheol.” With that simple introduction done, Mingyu immediately walked over next to the other tall man, who smiled a little at him.

“I’m Seungkwan. Please, _please_ don’t call me sir or your highness or any of that. I’m just Seungkwan and it’s nice to meet you all,” the prince said next, and Seungcheol looked at his round cheeks and short stature. There was unease in his eyes, but also determination, and he respected that.

“Wonwoo. Jeon Wonwoo,” said the tall man Mingyu was giving puppy eyes to. Seungcheol decided they would be rather infatuated with each other for a while so he glossed over them.

“My name is Joshua,” said the cat-eyed man, and Seungcheol was a bit unnerved to find that Joshua was staring right at him, a little smirk on his face. 

“Jeonghan,” the siren hummed, leaning closer to Joshua. Joshua didn’t move away and again, Seungcheol was struck with how...pretty they looked. 

“I’m Soonyoung!” The siren with the bright orange hair and equally as bright tail waved a hand enthusiastically, voice very accented. Seungcheol had a feeling he and Seokmin would be good friends.

“...Jihoon.” The small siren next to him, with hair such a pale yellow it was almost white, sunk a little further into the water, his tail shimmering with opalescent pinks and blues as he glared suspiciously at the humans.

“I’m Chan,” said the last one, waving a slightly friendlier hand. He had a small smile on his face, though a little wary, and Seungcheol waved back a little bit, and his tail was colored a calm, warm brown spotted with little white speckles, like melted chocolate and bits of marshmallow.

“Nice to know we’re all acquainted now,” Jeonghan drawled, hoisting himself higher out of the water so he could sit on the pier next to Joshua. “I’m sure we don’t need to go over what we’re here for?”

“Wait wait wait, before we start, are you guys the pod Hansol was talking about?” Jun asked eagerly, moving a little closer.

“You- you know where Hansol is?” Jihoon countered, swimming up to the pier. He seemed small but aggressive, though there was more worry than anger in his eyes. “Where is he?” His voice, like Soonyoung’s, was accented but less so, more clear. Jun deflated.

“He’s...back at the lab with Minghao. But don’t worry, they’re both safe,” he said quickly, and Jihoon went back to glaring at him.

“Speaking of,” Jeonghan hummed, drawing everyone’s attention. “Have you thought of what you’re going to do? There’s a blood moon coming up, and you don’t want to be around us for that.” He grinned sharp teeth, and Seungcheol shivered.

“No, I honestly don’t know what to do,” he admitted with a small shrug. “Seungri gave me a hard no when I suggested letting them go, and Seunghyun is kind of...unhelpful. I’m kinda caught between a rock and a wet place,” he joked weakly, gesturing to the water. Jeonghan didn’t laugh, but his eyes narrowed a little in what Seungcheol hoped was amusement.

“Well that’s what we’re here to talk about,” Jeonghan hummed, looking up at him through half-narrowed eyes. Seungcheol shivered again.

There was a bit of an awkward silence. Then Joshua snapped his fingers, looking thoughtful.

“Do you think Seungri would...let you go out and look for more sirens? Something about observing their behavior in packs versus on their own?” His voice was sort of expectant as he trailed off, giving Seungcheol a raised eyebrow. It took a second to click.

“...Are you suggesting we put you four in tanks as well? ‘Cause I’m 99% sure if I try that, you’re going to skin me,” Seungcheol said flatly, looking at Jihoon. Jihoon smirked thinly, his already sharp eyes narrowing. 

“That might just work though,” Jun said thoughtfully, looking out at the ocean. “If we can get all six of you together, then there’s a high chance you could sing your way out. The element of surprise.” Slowly, Jun’s gaze went to Seungcheol, who blinked.

“...Why is everyone looking at _me_?”

“Because you’re the most suited to be the leader of this little mission, along with Jeonghan,” Chan piped up, and Seungcheol had to admit he was a little flattered. 

“Ok but...that’s dangerous,” he tried to argue, though he was beginning to wilt under Mingyu’s puppy eyes.

“Not if we do it right,” Joshua hummed, swinging his feet in the water. “If you can just...catch everyone off guard, then this shouldn’t take too much brain power.”

“But what will the rest of us do?” Seungkwan piped up, voice worried. Seungcheol took a moment to observe the prince. He’d never really seen the kid up close, but he knew the prince was well-liked by almost everyone in town, which was impressive. He also seemed a bit high-strung, which Seungcheol couldn’t blame him for.

Joshua is silent for a second, and Seungcheol can’t help but feel that the cat-eyed man is the real mastermind behind all of this, no matter what Chan says. 

“Well, obviously we need you four to, ahem, for lack of a better word, ‘collect’ some new sirens,” he began, looking at the rest of the people with legs, “and we need someone who can get us out of there quickly. Seungkwan, can you drive?”

The prince shrugged. “I mean, sort of?”

“Good enough.” Seungcheol fought off the urge to snort, but Joshua gave him a look anyway. “You four, of course, just need to do what you do best and sing like there’s no tomorrow.”

“If that’s all we need to do, than just take Jeonghan,” Soonyoung laughed, waving a hand, and the tension in the air relaxed somewhat with his cheerfulness. Seokmin looked eager to be friends with the bright orange siren.

“Wonwoo, you and me will guide. Sound good?” Joshua finished, and though their plan was a little rough around the edges, it was starting to take shape. Wonwoo nodded, which only cemented Joshua’s words, and Seungcheol sort of felt like they were going to commit some mission impossible crime or something.

“...And what if something goes wrong?” He couldn’t help but ask, and he knew everyone else was wondering the same thing.

Both Jeonghan and Joshua turned to look at him. “It won’t,” they said in perfect unison, identical smiles on their faces. Seungcheol was justifiably intimidated.

“We- we should still have a backup plan,” he mumbled, and Joshua stood up, surprising him a little bit.

Instead of answering Seungcheol’s unasked question, he looked around at them all, his eyes almost...glowing? No, they were definitely glowing. 

“The moment you leave this place, you all are bound to secrecy. No word of this will be spoken to any unwanted ears. Is that clear?” he prompted, and, after some hesitation, everyone nodded. Joshua smiled a smile that looked somewhat predatory. “Good.” 

He then held out his right hand, and in it materialized 10 golden, slightly translucent chains, going to each of the beings there, connecting to their wrists. Seungcheol’s eyes widened when he noticed his coiling around his neck. Oh. 

Still, he couldn’t feel it, but he knew it was there, by the tightness sitting in his chest and the weird, sourceless warmth around his neck. He could tell that they were somehow being bound to their word, bound to Joshua’s promise of them not spilling any info. The notion was somehow both thrilling and sobering.

He stared openly at Joshua, and yep, his eyes were definitely glowing. “I’m your backup plan,” he said simply, a small smile on his face. He closed his hand into a fist and their strange leashes disappeared, leaving all of them a little winded, but no more so than Seungcheol, who immediately reached up to touch his neck, checking if the chain was still there. He felt nothing, but he could still sense a warmth there, kind of pulsing and dim, only there if he really concentrated.

Just who was he working with? Sirens, and now what seemed like a wizard? His day was just getting stranger and stranger.

“Who- what are you?” Seokmin finally ventured to ask. Joshua laughed, and even though his haze, Seungcheol thought he had a pretty laugh. Curse his weakness for cute boys.

“Magician, sorceror, wizard, whatever. I can do big sparkly things,” Joshua chuckled sarcastically, making a rainbow motion with his hands, fingers trailing glinting bits of light in their wake. He gave them a raised eyebrow, and Seungcheol was a bit worried with the way Seokmin looked ready to simply faint on the spot. He didn’t blame Seokmin whatsoever.

“On a more serious note, I’ll be cleaning up any...stray threads while we work,” Joshua hummed, his face falling into a more calm expression. Seungcheol shivered when he wondered what would happen to the poor souls who witnessed them.

“Huh. I’m working with a wizard and with fish people,” Seungkwan laughed weakly, and Seungcheol full-heartedly sympathized with his dumbstruck tone.

“Hey, watch it. These ‘fish people’ can still do some damage,” Jihoon shot warningly, but Jeonghan raised a hand and to Seungcheol’s surprise, the small siren quieted, though he certainly didn’t look happy about it. Jeonghan just seemed strangely serious.

“The blood moon is coming in two weeks. You need to be prepared by then,” he warned. Seungcheol felt a strange tugging in his gut, a calling to obey Jeonghan’s words without question.

“We’ll be ready,” he said before he could think, but luckily, Jun, Mingyu, and Seokmin only nodded, looking just as dazed. Jeonghan fixed them with a piercing stare.

“You better be.”

* * *

From there, everyone just kind of mingled, getting to know each other. Soonyoung, Seokmin, and Seungkwan got along like a house on fire (was that appropriate word choice?), and Jun had managed to hold a polite conversation with Jihoon so far. Mingyu and Wonwoo were immersed in asking Chan what life was like underwater, and Seungcheol…

Seungcheol had found himself at the mercy of two very pretty men, who kept smiling at him like they knew something he didn’t. It was incredibly unnerving but Seungcheol found he didn’t mind. They talked like they could read each other’s minds, working to easily wheedle bits of information from him about his life and about the lab.

Then, as he’d expected, Jeonghan started asking about Hansol and Minghao.

“Are they alright? Are they eating? Hansol doesn’t eat when he’s stressed,” Jeonghan asked, and for perhaps the first time, his knowing smile fell, replaced by worry.

Seungcheol was quick to reassure him. Having witnessed the golden siren’s eating habits for himself, he knew the unease Jeonghan was feeling.

“Yeah, he’s eating, don’t worry. Once we put him and Minghao in the same tank, I think Minghao forced him to eat,” he soothed, and Jeonghan nodded, leaning back a little bit from where he had been leaning over Joshua’s legs to talk to Seungcheol. 

“Minghao always was so protective of him,” Jeonghan nodded, looking out at the water and flicking the tip of his tail at the surface. “I found both of them alone, no one in sight for leagues.” Seungcheol didn’t know what to say to that, so he just nodded along, watching the way Jeonghan’s crimson tail caught the sunlight, glittering a little with droplets of excess water. He kind of wanted to touch, to see what it would feel like under his fingertips.

“About that shell,” Jeonghan suddenly said, and Seungcheol blinked, hand automatically rising to touch where the little trinket used to be. He kind of regretted throwing it into the water; he wanted it back. 

“Yeah, what about it?” he prompted, and he was surprised when Jeonghan held it up, pulling out the little shell seemingly from no where. His eyes widened and he automatically reached to take it back, but Jeonghan held it away, a teasing smile on his face.

“You can have it back once Hansol and Minghao are back in the ocean and far, far away from this place,” he hummed, and Seungcheol let his hand fall.

“...Alright,” he mumbled, a little sullenly. Joshua chuckled and again, Seungcheol was shaken by how pretty they both were. He felt like he was being tag-teamed and it was kind of unfair but hey, if got to see them smiling like that, he considered himself lucky.

“...Hansol already told me this, but what happens on a blood moon?” Seungcheol asked delicately, shattering the pleasant aura. The question had been weighing on his mind ever since Hansol had brought it up, and now Seungcheol always checked the moon before he went to sleep. Call him paranoid but he thought he had every right to be, thank you very much!

Jeonghan’s smile fell too, and he and Joshua exchanged a look.

“...Bad things happen. It’s called a blood moon for a reason,” Jeonghan explained slowly, his eyes turning hard. “It’s a time where the stories of sirens being vicious murderers become more than myths. Normally we only bite at what lurks below the surface, but...well let’s just say that on that night, the moon brings in more than just the tides. It brings up primal instincts in us to find blood, instincts from back when sirens were born of ill endings.”

There was displeasure in his eyes, and Seungcheol winced a little, looking away. There was a bit of an awkward silence, then Joshua straightened his posture a little.

“Well, if we do everything right, then you won’t have to find out why a blood moon is called a blood moon,” he said primly, and all Seungcheol could do was hope that nothing would go wrong.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cheol getting teamed up on by JiHan was so fun to write  
> ALSO I'M ON WINTER BREAK NOW SO I CAN FINALLY WRITE


	23. Independence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seungkwan holds his own against his mother, and while that keeps him satisfied for a while, he finds out something that could potentially reroute everything they've done so far.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok first of all Happy Birthday to my beloved baby boy Joshua, and second of all NOW THINGS ARE FINALLY STARTING TO RAMP UP OH MY GOD  
> 22 chapters of nothing but crumbs but here we go, finally some heavier stuff  
> hehehehhe things will get pretty spicy from here on out

His mother had been _beyond_ furious. It wasn’t obvious, but Seungkwan saw her anger in the hard set of her lips and eyes, in the high posture of her shoulders, in the way Minho took a little step to the side, eyeing the royals uneasily.

“Seungkwan,” she’d began tersely, standing up all slow and mancing like a snake rising to strike. Seungkwan was barely shorter than her, but in the moment, he’d felt like she absolutely towered above him. 

“...Mom,” he nodded warily, taking a small step back. 

“So. You think it’s funny to run away after I explicitly told you to stay with Minho?” she prompted, using her “queen” voice, as Seungkwan had dubbed it in his head. 

“It was important,” he sighed, looking away. “...Sorry.”

“Seungkwan, if you get hurt somehow, ‘sorry’ is not going to cut it! You need to learn that your safety is more important than you realize!” his mother argued, and Seungkwan frowned.

“More important than what?” he huffed. “Than my freedom? Than my friendships? I don’t want to live my life surrounded by guard dogs! I can take a walk without getting hurt, mom.”

“But what if you do get hurt? Then what will you do if no one is around? Face it, Seungkwan, not everyone is as good as you make them out to be.”

“Then I can learn to deal with the consequences on my own! You can let me grow up, mom, I’m not a child anymore! If you want me to be king someday, at least let me make a mistake or two here and there. You sheltering me all the time isn’t gonna help me grow,” he sighed, putting his hands on his hips.

“You are a prince, Seungkwan, you cannot _afford_ to make mistakes,” she growled, beginning to pace back and forth. “You come from a long, long line of distinguished monarchs, and you are my only child. I can’t have you running off where I can’t follow.”

“Well what if I want to mingle with the people? It’ll strengthen our relationships,” he argued. His mother shot him a hard look.

“I understand your want to play around outside-”

“No, I don’t think you do.” He knew he was in trouble, cutting his mother off like that, but he couldn’t hold it back. He was done with being treated like a child swaddled in bubble wrap. “Have you ever actually gone and been around your own subjects? I have. I know them. I know all of them would help me if I asked for their help. There’s nothing for me to be afraid of out there.” 

“You don’t know that,” his mother hissed, like a snake rattling its tail in warning. Seungkwan could feel his anger boiling over and he took a deep breath forcing himself to stay calm.

_Think of the sea. Think of the sea. Think of the waves. Very calming._

“I think I do know that,” Seungkwan said through gritted teeth. “I know how to take care of myself.”

“Other people don’t. I don’t want you getting hurt where people can’t take care of you.”

“Mom, I can take care of myself, ok? I’m not three years old anymore.” The conversation was just going in circles, and Seungkwan was tired of it already. “Like, look at me. I’m fine! Do I look injured to you?” he held out his arms, raising an eyebrow.

“It’s about the _possibility_ , Seungkwan. If there’s a chance of you getting hurt, then I don’t want you going out there.”

“By that logic, then I shouldn’t even be alive,” he said dryly. His mother glared at him, pinching the bridge of her nose as she paced back and forth, back and forth, indignance rolling off of her in paplable waves. 

“Fine. If you want to be difficult, then fine. Go ahead and run about wherever you like. I’m going to put a tracker on your phone and if I find you anywhere where you shouldn’t be, then there will be consequences,” she finally sighed, waving a hand around like Seungkwan’s resistance was a minor inconvenience. 

“...I’m not a dog either mom,” he huffed, feeling indignance rise in his chest like storming ocean waves, calming tide be damned. “Is that all I am? Am I just a show animal for you to put on a pedestal so you can show off? At this point, when I become king, I’m not gonna have any experience at all!”

“You can learn everything you need to know in the castle,” his mother had insisted sharply, leaving no room for argument.

Seungkwan made his own room. “That’s not true at all! How will I get to know the people if I don’t, oh, I don’t know, actually talk to them? I think you’re just scared to admit you don’t know how to interact with your own subjects,” he spat, and he instantly knew he’d crossed a line.

“The people are just people, Seungkwan, they aren’t important to your learning,” his mother said imperiously, and _that_ was crossing a line for Seungkwan.

“Of course you’d say that. You think no one but the royal family is important, and dad would agree with you because he’s a pushover of a king. Even Minho would be better than him!”

“Leave me out of this,” Minho warned, holding his hands up warily, but Seungkwan glared at him.

“Why can’t you just let me do what I need to do to grow? I’m never gonna learn anything cooped up in here all the time! If I get hurt, then I’ll deal with it on my own. I don’t need you always hovering over my shoulder and telling me what I can and can’t do. I’m tired of you trying to control my life!”

Breathing heavily, he stared at his mother, who stared right back, wide-eyed. Then her face turned sour, unimpressed, cold. 

“Alright then. Go out and do whatever you wish. If you get hurt then it’s your responsibility. I won’t coddle you anymore.” She moved towards the door, and Seungkwan glared at her.

“I sure hope you don’t,” he hissed, not moving from his place. Once he door had closed, he swung towards Minho, who, eyes wide, hadn’t moved the whole time. “Well? Are you gonna take her side just like everyone else? I can’t waste my life away in here. I have things to do.” Without waiting for an answer, he brushed past Minho and grabbed his laptop. 

“...Things like what?” Minho asked lightly, a little too casually.

“Things.”

“...Do you...want anything?”

“Yes. I want you to leave and tell my mother to piss off. I mean, you don’t have to, but it would be appreciated. Also, if you can find me any books on old police records, that would be amazing.”

“Police records? Of when? Why?”

“Doesn’t matter why. Just get me the stuff from...oh, say, up from 20 years ago? I want dirt on Lee Seunghyun.”

“...Lee Seunghyun. Seungri. I know him,” Minho had said quietly, and Seungkwan turned around to look at him, silently demanding an answer. Minho shrugged. “I mean, not well. I mostly know _of_ him, but we trained together for a little bit. He was always kind of a weird guy, like...overly-hostile. He didn’t like people and he was obsessed with getting a high position on the police force.”

“Do you know why he dropped out?” Seungkwan pressed. Minho sighed, rubbing the back of his neck and shrugging a little.

“Dunno. I know his friend, Choi Seunghyun, got put out of commission for a while for some reason, but I never found out why and Seungri wasn’t the same afterwards. A couple days after I was assigned to your family, he just...ghosted, and when he popped up a couple months later at the lab even I was surprised,” he admitted softly.

Seungkwan had stared at him for a long, hard moment, then turned back to his computer. “All the more important that I get those files then. Please.” Minho hummed, and Seungkwan heard the door opening and closing, leaving him alone as he dove into the internet to try and look into Lee Seunghyun a little. Something about the man put a bad feeling in Seungkwan’s gut, and he felt like he needed to look into the former policeman.

* * *

The next day, Seungkwan had gone down to meet Jeonghan and the others, and he found Seokmin and Soonyoung to be excellent company, both funny with the same kind of humor as him. He had still been anxious the entire way, kind of worried about whether his mom would do something, but it seemed like nothing would happen, because she pretty much ignored him at breakfast. 

Now he was sitting by himself in the castle library, a bit stunned. Seeing the sirens there, in real life, right in front of his eyes, was kind of a shock, and Joshua on top of it all? He could still feel a very slight tightness around his wrist where that weird golden chain had been (he felt bad for the man named Seungcheol, whom Jeonghan and Joshua seemed to like. He couldn’t imagine that the pair of them would go easy on him).

And now he had a job to do. He had to help break two sirens out of the SVT labs with pretty much no plan, and he had no idea if it would work. He didn’t really know anyone else that well, even if they seemed friendly, and even with Joshua’s magic, who knew what could go wrong…?

He sighed softly, putting his head into his hands, rubbing at his eyes. He hadn’t even seen the two sirens they were supposed to rescue, but whenever they’d been mentioned, Jeonghan’s rose-red eyes had gleamed with such a fierce protectiveness that Seungkwan felt compelled to do what he asked no matter if he opened his mouth to sing or not.

He looked over when he heard his phone buzz, and he frowned, not recognizing the number. It was a very short text, but once he saw it he could guess who it was.

 

XXX-XXX-XXXX:

Let’s have a chat at the bar in three days, hm?

 

Seungkwan rolled his eyes. Could Joshua be any less conspicuous? He briefly made Joshua a contact in his phone, then sent a quick affirmative.

 

Wizard Boi:

Perfect. 

 

That was that, and Seungkwan huffed through his nose, frowning down at his phone. “So much for being casual and discreet,” he muttered, shoving his phone back into his pocket. How did Joshua even get his number in the first place?

...He decided not to ask. 

Sighing for what felt like the millionth time that day, he went over what had happened. Jeonghan and a whole pod of sirens had appeared, then people from the lab, and the whole interaction had been...charged, to say the least. Seungkwan didn’t know what to think. He wanted to trust them all, he really did, but he’d never seem most of them before, and he didn’t know if they all really wanted to help. What if something went wrong? What if someone got hurt? 

He did his best to shake the anxious thoughts away, but he couldn’t help but worry. He had no idea what would happen, and this was way, way out of his control.

Still, he’d promised to help, and he did want to help. He really did. For the sake of being a decent human being who helped someone else if no other reason. And he was still curious about Seungri and his strange, foggy past... 

Shuddering a little, he roused himself to stand up, wanting to get out of the dusty corner he’d been sitting in. He ran his finger along the books he’d been leaning against, peering at them, and he sighed. They were nothing helpful; mostly books about his ancestors whom his dear mother was so proud of.

Twisting his lips from side to side, he sighed to himself, running a hand through his hair and looking away from the books detailing his heritage; he wasn’t proud of them, wasn’t disappointed in them either. He just didn’t really know a lot about them, especially since he loved to slack off during history. 

Besides, the past was in the past, and Seungkwan had better things to think about.

* * *

Every once in a while, during the day, he’d feel a tugging around his wrist, right where the strange binding chain Joshua put on him had been. If he resisted the tugging, it would remain there in the back of his ribs, just kind of dormant, but if he followed it, sometimes he’d find cool things, like a sparkly rock behind an overgrown bush or a cool hidden niche to hide in. He wondered if Joshua was somehow guiding him somewhere, or if the magic was just doing strange things.

Either way, he usually followed out of boredom, and he was almost always led to somewhere interesting. He said almost, because once, he’d been taking to one of the maids about something, and the tugging had led him to a completely nondescript dead end, down an empty hallway whose purpose even Seungkwan didn’t know. It was just...there.

Other than that, the weird tugging sensation usually behaved itself, and when he was doing something important, Seungkwan was able to ignore the urge to follow. Mostly he was just confused as to why the feeling was there in the first place.

And he was confused on what Joshua’s magic really was. And how sirens worked. And why Joshua had kissed one. That had been a big oof.

Plus, he really wanted to know who the sirens in the lab were. He knew their names, Hansol and Minghao, but beyond that, he knew pretty much nothing. He wondered if, now that he was essentially free from most of his mother’s control, he could just stroll right into SVT labs without a problem. Would that be pretentious of him…?

He looked down when he felt the tugging at his wrist again, and on a whim he decided to follow it, walking aimlessly through the halls, and to his immense surprise, he came face-to-face with Minho, who was wearing the most serious expression Seungkwan had ever seen on him, gaunt and grim. He was holding a series of files under his arm, and he held them out with a grunt.

“I went a brought those police files you asked for,” he explained, and Seungkwan took them reverently, looking down at the covers, stamped with a big red “EXPIRED”.

“I did some digging too,” Minho continued. “On Seungri ‘n stuff. I...don’t think you’re gonna like what you find, honestly.”

“What do you mean? Where did you get these? How?” Seungkwan asked quickly, opening the folders over his arm and sifting through them. Dozens of files screamed out at him, but his eyes settled on a haunting title: 

“Lee Seunghyun: expulsion and self-incrimination”.

“It doesn’t matter how I got them,” Minho sighed, rubbing his arm. “Just...look through them and don’t be surprised by what you see, ok? The stuff in there...I risked an arm and a leg just to get those things.”

“Thanks, Minho, I owe you,” he breathed, looking up briefly. “Is there anything I can do in return?”

“Once you’re done with those, give ‘em back. I promised I’d return them,” Minho shrugged, and Seungkwan instantly nodded, still leafing through the papers. He bid the older man another thank you and a quick goodbye before bustling off, the tugging on his wrist satisfied.

He locked himself in his room, tossing the files onto his bed, spreading them out. He was looking for something specific, something particular, something-

There. The case from several years ago, where the girl’s body had disappeared right out from under Seungri’s nose. He snatched up the file, paused to wonder if what he was doing was illegal, then shrugged and opened it, eagerly skimming the page. Most of the information was stuff he’d seen already, stuff everyone knew, but on the back page, there was a section that made his blood run cold.

“Partner Choi Seunghyun injured. Cause of injury: unknown. Severity: minor concussion; temporary amnesia; difficulty speaking for 18 days; fluid in lungs. Full recovery was made.”

Was that why Seungri was so touchy? Was it because Seunghyun had gotten hurt somehow?

Seungkwan didn’t think that was the whole story. He flicked through the whole thing again, and a little slip of paper that had been loosely clipped to one of the packets fell out onto the sheets, reminding Seungkwan of some kind of mystery movie. At that point, his whole life felt like some kind of mystery movie.

“Lee Hei Ran; known as “Orchid” to her friends,” Seungkwan read aloud quietly when he picked up the paper, an anxious anticipation building in his bones. “Status: deceased. Cause of death: unknown. Date of death: unknown. Last known sighting: Scaler’s Lighthouse, playing with something in the water. Current location: unknown. Living relatives: Lee…”

Seungkwan had to pause and take a deep breath, eyes as wide as the moon.

“Living Relatives: Lee Seunghyun; father.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't actually know if Seungri has a daughter irl but oh well  
> hope u enjoy!!


	24. Is That A Warning Or A Threat?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hansol finds out what happened when Seungcheol and the gang talked to Jeonghan. He isn't sure he likes the plan the propose, but they don't really have any other options.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Getting closer to the action here !!!

Knowing that Seungcheol and the other Land-Walkers were going to meet and talk to Jeonghan, to Soonyoung and Jihoon and Chan, was both calming and incredibly nerve-wracking. Hansol didn’t know what could go wrong or what could go right and more than ever he wished he was back home in the ocean, safe and sound. He wished he could see his family again. 

“...Do you think they’re alright?” he asked Minghao quietly, staring up at the top of his tank. Minghao didn’t answer for several seconds, and, confused, Hansol looked over at him. To his surprise, Minghao was fiddling with some of his fallen scales, stringing them on a piece of kelp methodically. 

“...Hao, what are you doing?” he huffed, and Minghao gave a little start, pelvic fins shooting out like how they always did when he got surprised.

“N-nothing. Just...distracting myself,” he said evasively, his voice a low, clicking rumble. Hansol raised an eyebrow, suspicion making his scales tingle.

“...Sure,” he said sarcastically. Minghao glared at him, then went back to poking holes in the tops of his scales, then threading the kelp through them. “...Are you making a necklace?” He swam a bit closer, curiosity taking over the wry sarcasm, and Minghao shrugged.

“I guess.”

“You _guess_?”

“I mean, there isn’t much else to do around here. I’m bored,” Minghao huffed, shrugging again and tying the ends of the kelp together. “Arguably, we’re smarter than those twig-legs. I wanna _do_ something.”

“Me too,” Hansol sighed, looking around their tank. Every day, it felt like it was getting smaller, the walls closing in. It was boring, and with the added tugging of the blood moon making him anxious, Hansol really just wanted to get into some open water and race Minghao around until they were too tired to do anything else. 

“How long has it been since we got here?” Minghao sighed, reaching up to put his necklace around Hansol’s shoulders.

“Dunno. A moon, maybe two moons? Can’t really tell anymore.” Hansol shrugged, a bit helplessly, and Minghao’s lips thinned in an expression of familiar displeasure. “...I’m sure we’ll get out of here soon.”

Minghao only hummed, and Hansol didn’t blame him for not having anything else to say. 

“...The scary one is coming back,” Minghao muttered bitterly, and Hansol shot a wary, distrustful look at the glass as the creepy Land-Walker walked over, armed with what Seungcheol had told him was a _gun_. He didn’t really understand what the word meant, but he didn’t like it, just on principle. It sounded like a painful word.

“He’s so creepy,” Hansol mumbled, his scales prickling uncomfortably under that heavy, unblinking stare. “It’s like he wants to eat us or something.”

“Ha! I’d like to see him try,” Minghao scoffed, aggressively ripping up another piece of kelp. “I’d drown him before he could even open his mouth. Maybe I’d sing him to sleep forever. Or would that be too nice? That’d probably be too nice. Or I could just leave him to the sharks.”

“Violent as ever,” Hansol chuckled uneasily, trying not to make eye contact while keeping Seungri in his line of vision. Something about the man was just...unsettling, and Hansol didn’t like it. Seungri’s aura was like that of old, sunken ghost ships, death and darkness hanging around him, and as dramatic as that was, that was the feeling Hansol got whenever Seungri decided to wander by and stare at them for a while.

“Well at least Mingyu’s here,” Minghao offered more calmly, nodding up the upper level, where a tall figure could be seen, watching them carefully. Hansol was grateful for the reassurance, but he really just wanted Seungri to go away and stop looking at them.

“...Do you think he’ll try something?” he prompted. Minghao shrugged. 

“For his own sake, I hope he doesn’t,” he said loftily, and Hansol snorted, settling down next to Minghao on the sand so he didn’t have to keep being looked at. It was a foreign, uncomfortable feeling, and he disliked it immensely. 

To his (and probably Minghao’s) relief, he walked away soon after, hands clasped behind his back, a dangerously thoughtful look on his face. Hansol was worried. Was Seungri planning something?

Hansol didn’t know, but it made him uneasy, so the next day, when Seungcheol and the others dropped by after hours, he told them about it.

“He was just kind of standing there and watching, and when he went away, he looked like he was planning something bad,” he explained uneasily, fidgeting with one of the seashells he’d picked up from the sand.

“That...doesn’t sound good,” Jun noted slowly, “but before we talk about Seungri, we met with Jeonghan and the rest of your pod.”

“And? How are they?” he asked quickly, urgency making his tone accented and sharp. “Tell me now!” He swam closer, eyes wide, desperate to know if his family was ok.

“I- they’re fine, I think,” Seungcheol said placatingly, holding his hands up in a peaceful gesture. “They miss you, and they’re worried about you, but they don’t seem too bad. But uh...the small one, Jihoon, he kept glaring at us. Which, I guess, is fair.”

Hansol sank underwater, sighing in relief. His family was ok. Now he just had to figure out a way to get back to them.

“Well? What’d he say? Are they ok?” Minghao prompted, prodding him in the side with a sharp nail. Hansol nodded, quickly translating, and Minghao’s entire body loosened with the same relief that Hansol felt, ear fins flaring out and settling down several times.

“That’s good,” he nodded. “That’s very good.”

“It is,” Hansol nodded fervently, before looking back up at the Land-Walkers. “And? What’d they say? What’re we gonna do? What happened?”

“Well, uh...according to Jeonghan, he wants us to ‘capture’ him and bring him here so he can sing your way out,” Jun explained, and Hansol’s brow furrowed.

“...That sounds awfully risky, even for Jeonghan,” he said slowly, and the Land-Walkers exchanged an uncomfortable look.

“I mean, yeah, I agree, but we kind of have...backup,” Mingyu offered.

“Backup?”

“...Sort of. Do you know what magic is?”

“Essentially, yes.”

“Yeah, so... To make things horribly oversimplified, we have a wizard on our side.” Hansol blinked at Mingyu for a second, confused, then looked at Minghao.

“What’s a wizard?” he hissed.

“How should I know??” Minghao shot back. Hansol huffed.

“...Ok,” he said to Mingyu. Mingyu offered a dry smile.

“Wizards are people who can use magic,” he explained, and Hansol “oooh”-ed softly.

“That makes more sense. How’d you get a magic person on your side?” At that, there was some unease.

“Uh...Jeonghan apparently knows this guy named Joshua who can use magic, and he sort of became out backup plan. If anything goes wrong, he’s going to uh…’clean up the stray threads’, so to speak,” Seungcheol offered, fingers rising to his throat even though nothing was there.

“Who’s Joshua? Never heard of him before,” Hansol hummed curiously, tilting his head.

“Really? He was real flirty with Jeonghan. Always touching him and smirking at him,” Seokmin piped up, and Hansol’s brow furrowed. Was the kitten that Jeonghan had always spoke so fondly of...Joshua? A human? Why would Jeonghan keep that a secret?

“...Interesting,” Hansol finally offered, and Seokmin gave him a sort of tremulous smile. “...What kind of magic can he do?”

“I don’t know, really; I think he did some sort of binding shit or something,” Jun sighed, drawing a circle around his wrist. “Something about how we couldn’t mention this outside of anyone who mattered.” Seungcheol itched at his neck uncomfortably, nodding. Hansol tilted his head but Seungcheol didn’t answer, still idly rubbing at the side of his throat.

“So...are you going to bring Jeonghan here? How did you convince him to agree to that?” Hansol huffed, crossing his arms on the lip of the tank.

“It was his idea,” Mingyu corrected, and Hansol’s eyes widened.

“But that’s dangerous,” he argued. “What if something happens? If he’s not in the water and if he can’t use his voice, Jeonghan’s basically a fish out of water just like the rest of us.”

“I’m sure it won’t come to that,” Seungcheol said hastily glancing over his shoulder. “Look, if anything goes wrong, then- then we’ll try something anyway. Honestly I don’t care if I get fired for this. I fucked up the moment I started doing this stupid operation so I wanna make things right.” The other Land-Walkers nodded quickly, and Hansol hesitated. Would they really do that for him and Minghao?

“...Why?” he asked quietly, confused and a little scared, if he was being honest. As far as he knew, Land-Walkers were dangerous creatures, and he wasn’t totally unconvinced (cough, Seungri, cough). Seungcheol and Jun and Mingyu and Seokmin were nice, but… Why would they help? It didn’t benefit them in any way.

“Because it’s the right thing to do,” Seungcheol shrugged, like that explained everything. Land-Walker morals were so strange.

“What’s he saying?” Minghao hissed into his ear. Hansol sighed.

“He wants to bring Jeonghan here so he can sing us out,” he clicked, voice low, uncertain. That same uncertainty was mirrored in Minghao’s black eyes.

“...Ok,” he said slowly, twitching his tail back and forth. All Hansol could really do was shrug; he didn’t know how the plan would go either. 

“...So Jeonghan’s going to come here, and he’s going to sing us out? Like I said, if we’re out of the water, we’re essentially stranded,” he pointed out.

“We have portable tanks,” Seokmin piped up. “We can prepare them ahead of time. If push comes to shove, you guys can breathe air, right?” Hansol nodded. “...I mean if push comes to shove we can just drive you to the ocean. Mingyu has a pretty good-sized truck right?”

“It’ll be uncomfortable, but yeah,” Mingyu shrugged. Hansol blinked.

“What’s a truck?”

“It’s like a car but...bigger. With a holding space,” Seungcheol explained, seeming fairly impatient. “Either way, what matters is that we have some sort of plan. I don’t know how Jeonghan plans to do things, but I trust him for now, so we’re gonna try to do something soon.”

“That sounds…” Hansol trailed off, waving a hand, uncertain. He knew Jeonghan likely had a plan, but he didn’t want there to be even a slight chance of things going wrong. If Jeonghan or Minghao or one of the others got hurt...well, he probably wouldn’t ever forgive himself. This whole mess was kind of his fault in the first place anyway.

“Dangerous? Not well-thought-out? I know, but it’s the best we have for now,” Jun sighed, sitting back and fiddling with the pen in his pocket. “But I promise you, we’re going to get you out of here soon.”

“...Thank you,” Hansol said softly, not sure what else to tell them. “...If you see Jeonghan again, tell him we miss him and to stay safe, ok?”

“Duly noted,” Seungcheol nodded, voice soft. “Don’t worry. We’ll make sure things go ok. You guys will be home before you know it.” He seemed so kind, so reassuring, so certain of his words, but there was still a small kernel of doubt rotting in Hansol’s chest. He wished he could believe Seungcheol, but...but the risk was just too high.

“...I hope so,” was all he offered. Seungcheol gave him an unreadable look, kind of strained, a little pinched.

“...I hope so too.”

* * *

“...Do you think things are gonna go alright?” Hansol looked up at Minghao’s question, a but surprised that the other siren had spoken. Minghao usually didn’t like showing unease; he was always so firmly stoic that for a second Hansol couldn’t answer.

“...I don’t know, Hao. I want to say they will, but…”

“But you can’t be sure,” Minghao finished, and Hansol nodded awkwardly. 

“I mean, I trust them. I know they’ll do their best, but I don’t like the scary one, and I don’t want Jeonghan to put himself in danger because I was dumb and did a big stupid,” Hansol sighed, setting his head on his arms, closing his eyes.

Minghao was silent. Unsettling silent.

“...What if...what if something happens?” he finally whispered, and something unpleasant pieced through Hansol’s heart. If Minghao was nervous, then things were _bad_. 

“I’m sure it’ll be fine,” Hansol said, though his cheerful tone was clearly fake. 

“...What’d you think of them. The Land-Walkers?” Minghao sighed instead of saying anything else, and Hansol hummed. 

“I think they’re nice. Nicer than Jihoon makes them out to be, at least. Mingyu and Seokmin are really funny, and Jun and Seungcheol are caring. I think Jun likes you.” He couldn’t help but tease a little, hoping to ease the tension, and thankfully Minghao smiled.

“He’s probably just attracted by my singing,” he shrugged, and Hansol reached out to whack his arm.

“Nah, I’m sure he likes you! Have you _seen_ the way he looks at you? He’s like, obsessed with you,” he insisted, and Minghao sent him a skeptical look. Hansol just grinned at him, scooching closer on the sand.

“He _likes_ you~” he crooned, purring a high-pitched, teasing note. Minghao smacked him for that, but Hansol just laughed, happy to grab onto any grain of happiness in their desolate situation. He would have liked to say he knew they would get out...but chances were slim.

Still, he knew they had to take that chance. They had no other way out, and with the blood moon approaching, things could get dangerous if they waited too long. He didn’t want to hurt any of the Land-Walkers. Not the ones that had helped them anyway; he wasn’t so sure about that Seungri Land-Walker or his partner, Seunghyun. 

Well, if things went well, they wouldn’t have to worry about either of the two. Hansol hoped things would go smoothly.

* * *

As Hansol was trying to fall asleep on the rough sand on the bottom of their tank, something just kept poking at the back of his mind. He couldn’t quite figure out what it was, but no matter what he did, no matter what position he got into, it wasn’t comfortable enough. It felt like millions of tiny crabs were walking along his skin, pinching his scales, messing with his gills as he tried to breathe in water that suddenly felt thick and oxygen-deprived, almost suffocating. What was going on?

He glanced over at Minghao, who seemed to be having the same problem, turning over and over restlessly, a frown on his angular face, a question in his sharp eyes.

Hansol didn’t think it was because of the blood moon. The blood moon just felt like pulling at his scales, a gentle tugging behind his ribs that slowly became more and more powerful, not this strange, uncomfortable, almost ticklish sensation that made all his scales stand on end. 

The room was dark, Seungcheol and the others having left hours ago, and Hansol just wanted to fall asleep. Was that so much to ask for? He could probably float onto his back and fall asleep then, but he didn’t want to risk falling onto the sand and jolting awake again out of discomfort.

“The water feels...wrong,” Minghao clicked, his voice a thin, tinny whisper. “Harder to take in.”

“I noticed,” Hansol muttered, taking a slow, deep inhale through his gills, frowning when the process didn’t fill up his lungs as much as it normally did. Didn’t Seungcheol say their tanks were very precisely filtered to mimic that of ocean oxygen levels? Hansol didn’t understand.

“...Am I the only one who feels weirdly tingly?” Hansol prompted, rolling onto his stomach, head on his arms. That was how he normally fell asleep, but for some reason, rest wouldn’t come.

“No, you aren’t. I can’t sleep either. My skin just feels...crawly, like there are urchins on me,” Minghao nodded, shuddering a bit and scooching himself closer to the younger siren. “This hasn’t happened before, right? I’ve never noticed this.”

“No, I don’t remember anything like this happening,” Hansol sighed, frustration and wariness making his tone low and rough. “...I mean I guess all we can do is grin and bear it.”

Minghao sighed, shrugged, and settled down, very still, but Hansol could sense his anxiousness, and unease bloomed wildly in his own heart. Something was wrong. Something was wrong and he didn’t know what it was, but something was...off. Out of place. Sort of like…

Sort of like he was being watched. On a whim, Hansol turned his head, eyes slowly falling onto the wall of their tank, peering out into the dim blue darkness…

Only to find Seungri staring right back at him, pressed up against the glass, his eyes bright with something feral and unnatural as he leered at the two restless sirens.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I scared myself writing the ending there like I kept glancing behind myself to check if anyone was there


	25. Change Of Heart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As per the plan, Seungcheol goes out to "capture" another siren.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Seungcheol is just,,,,  
> my fav panicked boi  
> he's so whipped  
> when will JiHan ever let him live (hint: never)

“You want to look for more sirens?” Seunghyun huffed. Even Seungri looked surprised as Seungcheol nodded, his heart beating a frantic rhythm against his ribs. He didn’t even know how he’d summoned up the courage to finally put their plan into action, but somehow, he’d steeled himself enough to knock on Seungri’s office door and make his request. He was infinitely glad that Seunghyun was there too; it eased the tension significantly.

The faint pressure around his throat squeezed gently, warm, reassuring, almost approving. Ever since Joshua had done his weird little binding spell, Seungcheol could always feel a faint, steady presence around his neck, like a weird, sentient, invisible choker. Occasionally, it pulsed with warmth, tightening just slightly around his throat, and sometimes it tugged at him, guiding him for reasons he didn’t know, as though Joshua wanted him to go to certain places at certain times.

 At first, he’d been kind of freaked out by it, but he’d gotten remarkably used to it, and now, the faint, warm pulsing around his neck calmed his thudding heart as though Joshua was standing right behind him, arms around his shoulders, his presence steady and calm.

C’mon, Seungcheol, not the time to think about Joshua! Or Jeonghan, for that matter; whenever he thought of Joshua, thoughts of red scales and a beautiful voice inevitably followed.

“I must say, this is an...interesting change of heart. I do recall you insisting that I let the sirens go, and now you want to get more?” Seungri prompted, one eyebrow raised. Seungcheol nodded, and for a split second, he thought he felt a hand card through his hair, soft and proud. But that was impossible, so he just carried on.

“I still disapprove of keeping the sirens here,” he reminded, “but if we have to keep them, then I want to study them as a group. Clearly they have pack instincts and I want to look into seeing them interact with a siren they don’t know or haven’t seen before,” he reasoned.

“That...sounds good, actually,” Seunghyun piped up, giving Seungri a look. “That could definitely fuel our research as to how they act as social animals.”

“I don’t like it. It sounds suspicious,” Seungri said bluntly, and both Seungcheol and Seunghyun frowned.

“C’mon, Seungri, that’s unlike you. I thought you wanted to collect sirens too?” Seunghyun huffed. “And calling him suspicious? Seungcheol’s one of the most trustworthy men I know.” Seungcheol winced inside; if Seunghyun knew what he was planning to do, the older probably wouldn’t think he was so trustworthy…

For a few seconds Seungri just stared at him, unblinking. “...Who are you planning to take with you?”

“Mingyu and Jun, maybe Minhyuk if he’s available. We don’t need a lot of people,” Seungcheol shrugged, thanking his past self for preparing his answers in advance. He knew Seungri was a suspicious motherfucker, so it always paid to be thorough.

“Not Seokmin? I know you two are close.”

“He had something else to do. I think he’s going through the aquarium with the director for the next few days.” Not technically a lie; Seokmin was scouting out to see if they had any large spare tanks that could be easily moved and were durable enough to stand up to a bumpy ride down to the beach.

“And what will you do if you collect another siren?” Seungri said the word _siren_ like it left a bad taste in his mouth, and the subtle pressure around Seungcheol throat tightened noticeably, making him cough before he answered. Could Joshua’s protective side calm down for a second so he didn’t choke??

“Like I said, I plan on doing some social tests. Seeing how they react to one another, etcetera.” It was a viable request, one that really shouldn’t have brought up any suspicion, but of course, Seungri didn’t respond right away.

“You have my cooperation,” Seunghyun said, and Seungcheol gave him a smile as the tightness around his neck eased slightly. He did his best not to reach up and rub at the invisible pressure, but it was hard to ignore when it was constantly just _there_.

“...Fine,” Seungri finally said. “But I expect you to take full responsibility of the care of it if you find one.”

“That’s a given,” Seungcheol nodded, and the phantom hand carded through his hair again, making him shiver minutely. He had half a mind to reach up and bat at the air around his head as though to scare away a persistent fly, but he knew that would make him look like an absolute idiot, so he surrendered himself to the not-quite-physical sensations, which were kinda nice once he stopped thinking about it.

“Shoo. I need to talk to Seunghyun,” Seungri muttered, waving a dismissive hand at him. “If you’re going to do it, do it soon. The weather’s going to turn bad in a few days.”

“Duly noted. Thank you,” Seungcheol said politely, standing up and bowing a little as the invisible collar (he _really_ hated thinking of it as a collar but he had no other word for it) around his neck tugged insistently in the direction of the door, almost eager. Seunghyun gave him a smile and a wave while Seungri just looked at him with an unreadable expression, and Seungcheol decided it was probably best not to stick around any longer in case he heard something he didn’t want to.

The second he was out the door, the tugging pulled harder, and he literally leaned back, stopping for a second and firmly planting his heels into the ground. “Calm the fuck down, Josh, good lord,” he muttered, mostly to himself. “I can walk on my own.”

To his immense surprise, the tugging stopped, and a ghosting sensation rode over his shoulder for a brief second, a little apologetic? Seungcheol sighed. “It’s fine.” Now, he knew that if someone found him in the hallway, talking to nothing, he would probably get some very strange looks indeed, so he scurried down to the lab, excitement growing in his chest. So far, their plan was going fine, and frankly, he didn’t blame Joshua for being a bit impatient.

“I got permission!” was the first thing he said when he burst into the lab and hurried over to Mingyu. “Seunghyun was there and he basically said I was allowed to go.”

“Really? Fuck, that makes things so much easier,” Mingyu sighed, relaxing in his chair like he’d been put through something extremely strenuous. “When are you planning to go? I heard there’s a storm coming in soon.”

“Maybe tomorrow. I don’t wanna go right now, but make sure to tell Jun and Seokmin for me, ok? I’m gonna tell Hansol and Minghao.” Mingyu nodded, so Seungcheol turned to the tank, where Hansol and Minghao were watching him curiously. He gave them a bright grin and a thumbs up, and they smiled back, chattering to each other in their weird, clicking language.

The pressure around his throat tightened subtly again, making his pulse speed up, and he huffed, rubbing at his neck. “Ok, just wondering, but does the binding thing ever like...tug? It’s getting kind of weird.”

“Not...often?” Mingyu offered, tilting his head. “I mean, sometimes, but even then I don’t notice it a lot.” Seungcheol frowned, still idly feeling for his pulse.

“...Weird.”

“Maybe it’s just you,” Mingyu shrugged, a hint of a smirk on his face. Seungcheol smacked him, and Mingyu cackled, both of them ignoring the very confused sirens behind them.

* * *

The next day, he went down to the docks and found...Joshua standing there, smiling, a baseball cap pulled low over his face. Frankly he looked very attractive in the bright sunshine, and Seungcheol just kind of stared at him for a second at the top of the pier, confused.

Then Joshua held his hand out, palm up, and a golden chain appeared in it. Seungcheol had half a second to process what was going to happen before Joshua tugged a little, not hard, but hard enough to make Seungcheol stumble forward a bit until he stood in front of the other, rather flustered as he reached up to touch the now-solid collar around his neck.

“Hi there. Mind if I tag along?” Joshua asked cheerfully, patting his shoulder. Seungcheol couldn’t even think of saying no, so he nodded, tongue-tied and awkward. This was an _attack_ on his well being and he was not going to stand for it.

“The others are in the boat already, but I wanted to wait for you,” Joshua continued, dropping his hand and letting the golden chain disappear. Seungcheol fought to find something to say in response.

“Thank...you?” he offered. Joshua smiled at him, a little amused, a little fond, and Seungcheol looked away.

“Lead the way then, captain,” Joshua invited with a sweep of his hand, and Seungcheol stood there for a moment longer, just kind of staring at Joshua until he remembered that he had things to do and bobbed his head, hurrying onto the boat, feeling more awkward than he’d ever been. What was with cute boys and making him lose his composure?? Highly unfair, if you asked him.

“Why did you let him on?” he whined to Jun when he was out of earshot. Jun only smirked at him, patting his shoulder in a vaguely patronizing way before walking off, leaving Seungcheol to wallow in his embarrassingly large crush.

A cold wind suddenly blew through his hair and he shivered. Right, he had to get this finished before any foul weather came up to stop them. He wondered distantly if Joshua could control the weather, glancing over to see where the other had gone.

“I usually don’t; takes too much effort,” whispered a voice into his ear, and he jumped with a startled yelp, taking several steps back and bumping into the railing as Joshua laughed.

“God, you are so bad for my blood pressure,” Seungcheol groaned, turning and heading into the cabin as Joshua trailed after him, giggling.

“Good. I want to be,” Joshua purred, and Seungcheol froze for several seconds before shaking his head and firmly getting rid of all the not-so-pure thoughts that had suddenly ran through his mind, beating them back with a mental broomstick. He had time for those thoughts when he was alone at home, safely locked in his room.

“So...how’re we gonna do this? I don’t wanna cut my arm open again,” he asked instead, and Joshua’s expression calmed back into one of constant serenity.

“Don’t worry about it. Just head out to The Drop and I’ll take it from there,” he shrugged, and Seungcheol nodded warily, signaling to Mingyu to untie the boat. He peered out into the horizon, but the water and the sky were clear for as far as he could see, so hopefully they wouldn’t have any weather-based problems.

“So...how did that whole...thing with you and Jeonghan start?” he asked, trying to appear innocently conversational instead of awkward and creepy. Joshua huffed out a soft laugh through his nose, looking out into the water with a small smile, cat-eyes half scrunched-up.

“Mm...it’s a long story. I guess Lady Luck just favored me on a day I thought myself very unlucky,” he shrugged, which...wasn’t helpful at all.

“...Oh,” Seungcheol said, looking down at his shoes, eyes going to the hole in one of his sneakers. Joshua chuckled again and sent him a look that Seungcheol didn’t see.

“I’ll tell you the story later, hm? When we’re with Hannie and it’s just us. No chance of any...unwanted ears,” Joshua offered with a coy smile, gently tapping Seungcheol’s shoulder with the back of his hand, a small grin on his face.

“...Yeah, yeah, I’d- I’ll- that sounds good,” Seungcheol stammered a few seconds too late, too busy blinking rapidly to try and form coherent thoughts. Joshua laughed again and Seungcheol tried not to think of how pretty it was, or of the way he covered his mouth with a sweater paw to hide his smile.

Fuck, he was already whipped.

“Half an hour till we get to The Drop!” Mingyu called from the deck, and Seungcheol acknowledged him with a wave, sighing inwardly. Hopefully he would last that long.

* * *

Thankfully, they managed to reach the deep ocean without Seungcheol suffering from any cuteness-induced heart attacks, and as he and Jun set up one of the small skiffs, Joshua jumped in with them, insufferably smug-looking. Seungcheol just let it happen, ignoring Jun’s obnoxious winks.

“So uh...do your thing, I guess,” he invited, waving his hand, and Joshua hummed, shuffling to the edge of the skiff, putting his pinkies in his mouth, and producing a shrieking whistle that made Seungcheol flinch and cover his ears, hissing at the noise. It felt like the sound had rattled around his bones and made all his hair stand on end.

“Wait for it,” Joshua said slowly, once he’d stopped making that loud, piercing whistling noise. For a minute or two, there was nothing, and Seungcheol was about to ask what Joshua had done when the skiff suddenly rocked back and forth a little, the water underneath it rippling with waves.

“There he is!” Joshua cooed happily, leaning so close to the water’s surface that the boat tipped with him. Seungcheol, on instinct, grabbed the back of his sweater so he didn’t fall in, and even though Jun was smirking stupidly at him, he didn’t let go. Just in case, he told himself, peering warily into the water. The tightness around his throat pulsed, once, then twice, warm and grounding.

Quiet, distant humming made Seungcheol’s mind go soft and calm, and his grip loosened slightly when he saw Jeonghan’s face appear, smiling up at them.

“Hello,” he called, holding onto the edge of the boat and pressing his forehead against Joshua’s, giving his nose a fleeting kiss that made Seungcheol’s heart do a weird thing in his chest. “This brings back memories, no?”

“You could say that,” Seungcheol mumbled distractedly, still entranced with the pretty way Jeonghan’s scales reflected the sunlight, gleaming a metallic red like bloody roses in the early morning. Not the most pleasant mental image to have, but certainly a beautiful one. Jeonghan just smirked at him.

“How are my babies?” he prompted, still rubbing his nose against Joshua’s cheek as the magician whispered in his ear, undoubtedly saying soft things.

“They’re fine. Concerned, but excited to see you,” Jun supplied, looking as though he was trying not to laugh at Seungcheol’s vacant expression. Jeonghan nodded, his eyes taking on a distant, thoughtful quality, leaning back from Joshua a little.

“Up,” he demanded, holding out his arms. “I don’t think I can get in otherwise.” It took Seungcheol an embarrassing few seconds to realize the siren was talking to _him_.

“O-oh, right,” he stuttered, wondering just how the hell he was supposed to do this. Did he just...wrap his arms around Jeonghan’s waist and pull? Depending on the length of his tail, that could prove a challenge, but he had no better way, and under no circumstances whatsoever was he going to use a net. 

“Alright, uh...don’t bite, I guess,” he mumbled, leaning down a bit to let Jeonghan’s arms wrap around his neck, head pushing into his shoulder. The intimacy of it startled Seungcheol for several moments until he reminded himself that he had a job to do. He ended up putting his own arms around Jeonghan’s waist and pulling him up carefully, searching for where his tail bent to get an arm under the joint. When he found it, his arm was soaked but he didn’t mind, too focused on delicately hefting Jeonghan into the skiff and setting him down.

Out of the water, Jeonghan’s tail had to be at least twice the length of his torso, made of pure muscle and glistening with water, red scales rippling down the length of it and ending in a translucent, flowy pair of fins, not unlike those of an especially flamboyant koi.

“Wow,” he said dumbly, just kind of staring for a second. Jeonghan laughed, the sound close to his ear, and with a start Seungcheol realized that Jeonghan hadn’t parted from him, still leaning heavily against his chest, head resting on his shoulder, pretty much sitting in his lap. Even more wow.

“You’re going to have to carry me up onto that bigger boat anyway,” Jeonghan pointed out, and Seungcheol nodded, 110% sure that his cheeks were bright pink.

“...Right,” he said after a few seconds of silence, not even hearing Jun’s badly-stifled laughter behind Joshua. Speaking of, the magician had taken one of Jeonghan’s hands, playing with his fingers, smiling down at them like a fond lover. Which kind of made sense...somehow. Seungcheol violently pushed down the little seed of envy in his chest.

When they got back to the boat, Seungcheol had to awkwardly climb up the side one-handed, torn between holding tighter to Jeonghan and holding tighter to the ladder; he kind of felt like a pirate for some reason. Eventually though, he managed to get onto the deck without falling, but he kept Jeonghan in his arms, looking around for the tank they’d prepared.

“Hey guys, where’s the…?”

“Oh, right, almost forgot!” Mingyu said cheerfully, an expression of utmost surprise on his face as he scurried off. Seungcheol swore he saw him and Jun exchange a high five behind Jun’s back. In the meantime, however, he was left holding an honest-to-god siren in his arms, who was hugging him back, laughing at whatever Joshua was saying. Seungcheol didn’t know who to look at; his brain was getting fried just from being near them.

Mingyu took a suspiciously long time to get the tank, but when he came back, Seungcheol made sure to not-so-subtly kick his shin as he let Jeonghan slip from his arms and back into the water with a little splash, allowing him to finally step back.

“Alright,” he began slowly, looking back at the mainland, “step one is done, I guess. Hopefully things go ok from here.”

“Hopefully,” Joshua echoed, staring out the opposite way, into the horizon, an unreadable expression on his pretty face, like he was seeing something he didn’t like.

Seungcheol shuddered and decided not to ask.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Josh just popping up out of nowhere is a complete mood also I'M GOING TO THE CONCERT IN KENT ON THURSDAY AND IM SO EXCITED !!!!!!!! I CAN'T WAIT TO SEE OUR BOYS


	26. NOT AN UPDATE

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> NOT AN UPDATE, JUST A LITTLE PLACE FOR ME TO RANT

SORRY THAT THIS ISN'T AN UPDATE BUT I WENT TO THE JAN 23 2020 SVT CONCERT IN SEATTLE AND I'M  _SCREAMING_ IT WAS INCREDIBLE

MY VOICE IS SO FUCKING SHOT BUT IT WAS SO FUCKING WORTH IT

I GOT ME A PRETTY CARAT BONG AND I LOVE IT SM

GOD I LOVE MY BOYS AND I'M SO FUCKING HAPPY I WENT TO SEE THEM

MADE MY ENTIRE YEAR

 

SAY THE NAME, SEVENTEEN!!!!


	27. An In-Depth Discussion of Possible Murder Charges

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seungkwan brings Seungri's file to Joshua and Wonwoo, who both react accordingly. They talk to some selkies who might have some info, and things start rolling.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Things are finally picking up! Lots of stuff will happen within the next 10 chapters, hehehe
> 
> Also I love the title of this chapter ngl

_Living relatives: Lee Seunghyun. Living relatives: Lee Seunghyun. Living relatives: Lee Seunghyun._ The thought ran rampant through Seungkwan’s mind like a broken record as he hurried down to the town’s small bar, clutching the files in his hand. Joshua was going to meet him in said bar (and hopefully Wonwoo too), and Seungkwan _had_ to show them what he’d found out. Something told him what he knew was very important...and potentially very dangerous.

The bind around his wrist tugged faintly, and he broke into an awkward jog, hurrying down the streets up to the quaint bar. Once inside, he looked around urgently for a shock of light brown hair. The tugging around his wrist led him to a dim back corner, and he exhaled with relief upon seeing Joshua and Wonwoo sitting there. 

“Ok, ok before you say anything, read all of this,” he burst out, throwing the file unceremoniously down onto the table. “Actually, we should probably go to the bookstore, or to your house, Joshua, since this is kind of like, illegal stuff-”

“Slow down, jeez,” Wonwoo huffed, picking up the file and skimming the inside cover. Seungkwan watched with some satisfaction as his eyes widened behind his glasses, scanning the page more thoroughly. 

“...Let’s go to the lighthouse instead,” Joshua prompted, staring down at his glass of water with glazed-over eyes, and Seungkwan blinked, jerking back in mild alarm as the magician stood up without warning, snagging the file from Wonwoo’s slack fingers and tucking it under his arm as he walked away. The binding around Seungkwan’s wrist dragged him unceremoniously after Joshua, who seemed to be walking on autopilot, not even looking where he was going, instead staring down at his watch.

“Should be talking...right about now,” Seungkwan heard Joshua mutter, and though he couldn’t even begin to fathom what that meant, he exchanged a glance with Wonwoo, shrugged, and followed anyway.

“Wa-wait, why are we going to the lighthouse?” Seungkwan prompted, running to catch up with Joshua’s long strides. For someone so thin he was certainly fast, Seungkwan thought with a mental huff, looking up at the magician, who still seemed stuck in his own little world.

“Shade. Away from prying eyes,” Joshua answered stiffly, stopping suddenly to look over his shoulder. “Someone’s looking at us and I don’t like it.” His eyes flickered gold as they narrowed, and then he turned to keep walking, barely acknowledging Seungkwan’s wide eyes and dropped jaw. How was he supposed to respond to that?? Someone was watching them? Who? Why? How?

“...What is he going off about this time?” he muttered to Wonwoo, who seemed just as concerned.

“I don’t know,” Wonwoo shrugged, expression a bit helpless. “I mean, he really only gets this worked up when something big is going to happen. And this isn’t even a magic thing, but Joshua’s just really good at feeling eyes on him. He doesn’t like to be watched so he’s always looking over his shoulder all the time. I mean frankly it’s both kind of helpful and kind of annoying. The last time he was like this, he-”

Wonwoo suddenly cut himself off, frowning like he’d said too much, then shook his head. “Nevermind. Either way, it’s always best to just follow Joshua’s intuition. He’s almost never wrong when it comes to stuff like this; give him a deck of cards and an hour to himself and he can predict big events pretty well.”

That made curiosity burn in Seungkwan’s chest like a wildfire, but he held his tongue for once, nodding. Something about Joshua’s actions were a tiny bit uneasy, a little frantic, suspicious and cautious, almost...almost as if he was afraid. 

But that was impossible. Why would Joshua, a literal wizard, have any reason to be afraid? As far as Seungkwan knew, Joshua could quite feasibly do anything.

“Here is fine,” Joshua announced suddenly, dipping into the shadows at the base of the lighthouse, where he seemed to flicker in and out of existence for a moment. Seungkwan blinked several times to make sure his eyes were still working, and when Joshua’s form settled into something solid, he huffed, hurrying forward to join the magician in the shade, where he was flicking through the file, a frown on his cattish face.

“Lee Hei Ran?” he muttered to himself, and Seungkwan nodded.

“His daughter. No one knows how or when or where she died, but she popped up from the ocean a couple years back. Seungri himself worked the case. People called him a madman because he was so aggressive about finding who did it,” he explained, and Joshua frowned deeper, handing the files to Wonwoo and rubbing his face for a second.

“Interesting,” he finally said after a while, his voice muffled by his hands. “Interesting.”

“...Interesting how?” Seungkwan prompted warily.

“Just interesting. It means we have a lead now, right?” Joshua shrugged. “I mean, you’re the one who wanted to investigate this guy. Remind me again of why you’re doing this?”

If he was being honest with himself, Seungkwan didn’t know either. “I...got curious,” he admitted with a shrug, and Joshua smiled thinly.

“Curiosity is a powerful motivator indeed, isn’t it.”

“Curiosity killed the cat,” Wonwoo muttered quietly, and Joshua pointed to him.

“But satisfaction brought him back. I say we dig a little deeper into this. It might be helpful. Plus, something about this just feels...foreboding, y’know? I wanna hold onto these files.”

“You can’t keep ‘em forever, but you can have them for today,” Seungkwan nodded, and Joshua hummed, skimming through the files again. Seungkwan stayed silent for another few seconds, then burst out again. “Y’know, he was kicked off of the force, for suspected murder charges or something. No one really knows why he left, but some people say he murdered his own daughter, or that he went and killed whoever killed his daughter.”

Joshua...didn’t even seem to be paying attention. He was just staring down at the files, eyes slightly narrowed. He stayed that way until Wonwoo delicately plucked the files from his slack fingers with a mumble of “lemme see.”

“...This sounds lovely and all, but shouldn’t we be focusing on helping Hansol and Minghao?” Wonwoo muttered. Seungkwan just made an uneasy noise; Wonwoo was right, but something about Seungri and his mysterious circumstances put Seungkwan off. There was something unsettling about the man, and Seungkwan didn’t like it.

“It could be worth looking into,” Joshua hummed slowly, running his index over his lower lip.

“I mean, I could ask one of the selkies around the bay,” Wonwoo offered, “y’know, Yoongi, Taehyung, those ones? They’re pretty vigilant when it comes to scouting around. I could ask if they’ve seen any particularly nasty incidents around the lighthouse?”

“Yes, you do that,” Joshua mumbled, still distracted as he waved his hand around. In his palm, a golden chain appeared, which he tugged on a couple times. “Move a little...to the left,” he muttered to himself, and Seungkwan stared at him, then at Wonwoo, who just shrugged and shook his head. Was that was Joshua did whenever Seungkwan felt the tugging on his wrist? How...crude.

“Ok, back to whatever you were saying?” Joshua said, snapping back into awareness with a suddenness that made Seungkwan jump. “Yes, selkies, right. Wonwoo, you go do that. Seungkwan, you said he got kicked out for murdering someone?”

“ _Maybe_. He _might_ have murdered someone,” Seungkwan corrected, looking around anxiously. If someone knew what they were talking about…

“Good enough to start. Just...I dunno, keep an eye on the police records if you can,” Joshua nodded, rubbing his hands over his face for a second. “...Ok, ok, things are still going fine. Still on track. Just...need to recalibrate for a sec, hold on…not used to binding myself to so many people...” Seungkwan watched warily as Joshua stood still for several seconds, head in his hands, unnervingly still like he’d been carved from stone.

Then, with no warning, Joshua’s body shuddered with a deep breath, then relaxed as he looked up, his eyes glowing a faint gold.

“Ok. Things are fine. Still going as I planned. Wonwoo, do whatever you need to do with those selkies, and Seungkwan, keep an eye on these records, and any more that might come out later. I’m gonna snoop around for a bit. Jeonghan got into the lab around…” he looked at his watch, “oh, couple hours ago, I’m guessing? So things are fine on that end. I’ll leave that to Seungcheol...ok, we’re good.”

He seemed weirdly ruffled, far from the endlessly serene persona Seungkwan had seen at first. He seemed more...human, and it was strange. 

“O...k,” Seungkwan said slowly, exchanging a glance with Wonwoo. “So what’s next in the siren plan?”

Joshua stayed silent again for a second, staring at his watch, then jumped like he’d been startled, his reaction several seconds too late. “Oh yes, that- ok, we’ve got approximately a week to the blood moon, and since we’re kinda on a time crunch… Ok, tomorrow, I’m gonna go into the lab and scope stuff out. Tomorrow afternoon, I want you two at the lab by 4:30 at the latest, got it?” He looked at Seungkwan and Wonwoo, who both nodded carefully. “Good.”

“So are we going into the lab tomorrow?” Seungkwan asked; he couldn’t help but be a little excited. He was going to see more sirens! And help break them out, Mission Impossible-style! Joshua nodded, and Seungkwan high-fived Wonwoo, who smiled dryly at his enthusiasm.

“Just keep in on the down-low, ok? I’m not totally sure what’ll happen, honestly, I can’t look that far,” Joshua shrugged, peering out over the ocean and rubbing his eyes again. Seungkwan decided not to ask.

“Can I keep these for today?” Wonwoo piped up, holding the files. Seungkwan nodded, though hesitantly.

“Sure, but I need them back by tonight. I borrowed them from someone, and just the fact that I have them is kind of...illegal,” he said awkwardly. Wonwoo grinned.

“Well that just makes it more fun, right?”

* * *

Seungkwan ended up following Wonwoo back into town, where he said he knew some selkies who often swam around the bay area where Hei Ran had died. Apparently, selkies were real too.

“Joshua’s getting antsy, so I figure things are gonna get going pretty soon,” Wonwoo hummed, pausing and looking around before taking an abrupt left turn. “God, they’re so hard to find these days; I wish they’d just find a place and settle down…” Now, Seungkwan had no idea who Wonwoo was talking about, but experience told him to just keep his mouth shut and follow along.

“Ah ha! There they are,” Wonwoo exclaimed happily, leaping over a low stone wall and into what looked like an empty basketball courtyard of some kind, where several men their age were tossing a tennis ball back and forth. They looked...somewhat aggressive, honestly, draped in leather jackets with wildly-dyed hair. 

Wonwoo didn’t seem bothered, which was normal. “Hey, Namjoon!” he called, waving a hand, and Seungkwan shrunk down behind him a little as one of the taller men turned around, a lollipop stick hanging out of his mouth.

“Ah, Wonwoo, what’s up?” His voice was surprisingly jovial as he walked over to give Wonwoo a high five, and his eyes were scrunched into a kind greeting. “Haven’t seen you in a while, eh? I thought you’d gone and forgotten about us!”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Wonwoo snorted. “You guys know Seungkwan right? The prince of this place?”

“Excuse you, I’m the only prince around here,” the tallest man said, pretending to flip his hair dramatically. Seungkwan liked him instantly, and offered a shy wave.

“C’mon, Jin, show some respect,” Namjoon laughed, waving his friends over. “So what’d you need? You and Josh don’t normally call us out unless it’s something big. I have to say, I’m getting bored, so this better be good. Yoongi’s been itching for some action.” He jerked his thumb over his shoulder at the white-haired man sitting on the fence on the opposite side of the court, a wide-brimmed black hat tipped over his face. He hadn’t moved so far, and Seungkwan deemed him the most intimidating out of the seven new men.

“Seungkwan, this is Namjoon. He’s a selkie, and so are these guys,” Wonwoo introduced, gesturing to the men in front of them. “The tall one is Jin, the redhead is Hoseok, the emo in the back is Yoongi, the one with the red leather jacket is Jimin, the guy with the boxy smile is Taehyung, and the one with the black hair is Jungkook.”

“Hello?” Seungkwan offered, and Jimin gave him a clever, narrow-eyed smile that kind of put him on edge, not unlike Joshua’s smirks. 

“So, got anything new?” Namjoon prompted, nodding to the file.

“Actually, I think have something you’ll like,” Wonwoo hummed, holding out the file. “So, we’ve got some dirt on Lee Seunghyun. The police guy who got kicked out, y’know?”

“Oh, I know him,” Hoseok piped up, eyes scrunched up brightly. “Or I know _of_ him, at least. Doesn’t he work in the aquarium now?”

“He does, but there’s something kinda funky about him. Taehyung, I know you have a really good memory— do you remember anything about the death of a girl near the lighthouse around 10 years back Seungkwan dug up some stuff and it’s all looking kinda sketchy.”

The boxy-smiled man hummed, looking thoughtful. “10 years ago...by the lighthouse? I remember there was a storm that night. I don’t think I was nearby, but there was a lot of commotion going on, and I kept hearing people talk about the blood in the water. Something about red and singing. Other than that, I was too far away to make out what was going on.”

Red and singing. Why did that kind of remind Seungkwan of Jeonghan? But there was no way Jeonghan was connected to the case, right?

“What does Joshua think of all this? Seems a bit sudden after 10 years, doesn’t it?” Yoongi called, tipping his hat up to reveal dark, sharp eyes that seemed to glow with an inner fire. Seungkwan did his best not to shudder, but it was hard.

“Seungkwan was the one who found it, and we’re a bit...busy with other things,” Wonwoo shrugged. “You guys have the best memories we know of, so we figured if anyone could pick out some details, it’d be you guys.”

“I’m flattered,” Jin hummed, with just a hint of sarcasm. “But I do recall seeing Seungri puttering around a while ago, maybe...oh, 9, 10 days ago. Looked very much in a hurry, pretty excited too. He was talking to someone on the phone, and, you know me, I just had to tail him for a while. Heh, tail. Anyway, I saw him toddling on down to that shady tobacco store down on 6th, and he didn’t come out for a while. I hung around for like, an hour because I was bored and he didn’t leave. Not through the front entrance anyway.”

“...Weird,” Seungkwan said, and Jin nodded.

“Weird indeed, little prince. Now how are _you_ connected to all this?”

Seungkwan exchanged a look with Wonwoo. “...It’s a long, long story.”

“How is Joshua? He hasn’t said hello for a while,” Taehyung pouted, and Wonwoo smiled a little.

“He’s fine. A bit stressed, but everything is going how he says it should be going, so I’m going to trust him on that. Meanwhile, you guys know Jeonghan, right?”

“Of course we do. We share the bay with the sirens,” Jungkook nodded, and Wonwoo took a deep breath.

“Well, some of them were captured by the lab. Hansol and Minghao, to be precise,” he explained, and instantly he was met with Jin and Namjoon’s outrage, along with protective indignance from the rest of the gathered selkies. Yoongi remained impassive, sitting on the fence.

“They were _what_?!” Jin cried, throwing his hands up. “How? Where? Why? When? Who do I need to slaughter!?”

“Calm down, Jin, we’re working on it,” Wonwoo said placatingly, holding his hands up in a peaceful gesture. “You reacted exactly like Jeonghan. You two are such mother hens, y’know that?”

“Please, my children can barely handle themselves,” Jin snorted, bundling Jimin and Jungkook under his arms. “The only one I trust to take care of himself is Yoongi but only if he’s underwater.” Namjoon made a face at that but said nothing, and Seungkwan snickered.

“So what’re you guys planning? If Joshua’s involved, I’m sure it’s gonna end in a bang, no?” Namjoon prompted, and Wonwoo’s expression flickered.

“Well, our plan is kind of crude. Right now, I just wanna ask if you guys can...keep some extra eyes and ears out. We could use some more people now more than ever.”

“Do we get anything from this?” Jimin called, still tucked under Jun’s arm.

“Well, for one, Jeonghan won’t come for your asses if you help us,” Wonwoo pointed out, and Jin and Namjoon snorted, sharing a look like it was an old inside joke.

“...If you help, I can section off an area of the bay where no boats are allowed to go. I’ve been planning to make part of the shore off-limits to people anyway,” Seungkwan offered carefully, and he did his best to remain straight-backed as everyone looked at him.

Then Namjoon smiled, a narrow-eyed, appreciative smile. He held out his hand, and Seungkwan shook it, hoping his hands weren’t trembling as much as he thought they were.

“You got yourself a deal, kid.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> BTS cameo bc why not


	28. Reunion and Separation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hansol and Minghao are finally reunited with Jeonghan, but only for a short time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope this is up to your guys' expectations ;-;  
> I love soft JeongSolHao sm

Hansol sensed more than anything else that something was going to happen. He could feel in in the edges of his scales, tingling and bright, jumping between his ribs like a frightened clam as he anxiously swam back and forth. He’d picked up what Jun called “pacing” from Mingyu, where the Land-Walker would just walk back and forth for no reason other than to relieve stress. Somehow, Hansol found it calming as well, even though Minghao told him off for it.

However, right now, even Minghao was silent, staring at the sand, expression unreadable as they both waited for...something. They knew Seungcheol and the other Land-Walkers had gone out to get Jeonghan, but they hadn’t come back yet, and uneasy apprehension made it sort of hard to breathe.

Or maybe it was just the water. For some reason, Hansol could tell that the water was thinner, oxygen-deprived and hard to take in. It left him lightheaded more often than not, and he had to take in deeper breaths to get the same amount of air. Minghao too, seemed to notice it, always rubbing his chest with a slightly confused expression like he wanted to cough but wasn’t quite sure why. Sometimes the slender siren fell victim to coughing spats that Hansol could only watch, helpless to do anything until Minghao was able to get enough air filtering through his gills.

“You think they’re gonna be here soon?” Minghao asked quietly, and Hansol hummed, uneasy.

“I hope so,” he mumbled. Seungcheol had told them their plan, but the worst part was that Hansol and Minghao had to act as though they didn’t know Jeonghan. If they seemed to know each other, then that would be suspicious, and at that time, the last thing they wanted was for Seungri to start investigating. Seungri was still the head of the mission, and ultimately he had the final say in how things went, which, understandably, was terrifying to Hansol. There was no saying when or how Seungri might interfere. There were too many things that could go wrong.

“I hope Jeonghan’s alright,” Minghao coughed, rubbing his chest again. Hansol patted his back firmly, humming weak agreement. He hoped they would even last long enough to see Jeonghan. Once, Soonyoung had passed out in what was essentially oxygen-less hot water, and once he regained consciousness in the cool dim of the deeper ocean, Jihoon absolutely refused to let him go anywhere on his own for two weeks.

Then, all of a sudden, the faint whirring that Hansol learned to associate with the air filter got stronger, and it became easier to take in air, the oxygen levels returning to normal. Minghao immediately sucked in several deep breaths, and it should have been funny, comical, exaggerated, but somehow, Hansol was afraid that he wasn’t just trying to be funny.

He glanced out of their tank, only to see Seokmin looking at them from the upper level, looking extremely concerned and a little scared. That in turn made Hansol uneasy as he warily asked Minghao if he was ok. Minghao just waved him off, which was normal.

He resolved to ask Seokmin what the heck was up with their oxygen filter the next time he had the chance.

* * *

Seeing Jeonghan being wheeled in a couple hours later, sitting in a small tank much like their own, made Hansol’s heart do all sorts of weird, intense things in his chest. He ached to smash the glass and drag himself to the older, curl up under his fins and never disobey his rules again, and it had never been harder to act stoic, to act like they didn’t know each other. He heard Minghao whimper next to him, and he wrapped an arm around the other siren.

Jeonghan, on the other fin, was an impressive actor. He simply looked them over once, expression blank, before curling up, looking every bit the dejected, defeated siren he wanted to seem like. Hansol almost scoffed; no one could make Jeonghan break. No one.

...Right? Jeonghan was just acting, right? Hopefully. 

The urge to break out and go to Jeonghan and hug him tight only increased, and Hansol wondered how he would ever be able to bear having him so close yet so far. 

“At least we know he’s there,” Minghao pointed out softly, and Hansol just let out an uneasy hum, flicking his dorsal fin out like he always did when he was agitated. Something about this whole scheme just seemed weird, felt off. He was missing out on something. There was someone else involved who he hadn’t met yet; he could _feel_ it in his scales.

“You think he’s ok?” he asked slowly. Minghao hesitated.

“He’s a good actor; he’s probably fine. If push comes to shove, he can just sing his way out. No one can resist Jeonghan’s voice.”

“True…” Hansol still felt anxious. Ever since he’d nearly had a heart attack after seeing Seungri staring and grinning maniacally at them that one night through the glass, he’d been incredibly tense, high-strung and jumpy. The strange case of oxygen deprivation wasn’t helping, and somehow he felt like something bad was going to happen very soon. 

“...This feels dangerous,” he said quietly. Minghao said nothing, but Hansol knew he agreed anyway.

* * *

They didn’t get to talk to Jeonghan that first day, or the day after that. They had to wait three whole days for Seungcheol to open the lid late at night, holding a familiar figure in his arms. The blood moon had been tugging harder and harder at Hansol’s instincts, but right now, seeing Jeonghan, seeing the relief and love and happiness on his face, pulled at him harder than any supernatural force could.

“Hello there, my babies,” he clicked in his lovely, familiar, breathy voice, and his voice was shaky for the first time Hansol had ever heard, trembling ever-so-slightly as he reached out for them, all elegant fingers and delicate hands. Seungcheol carefully let him slip into the water and immediately, Hansol and Minghao hugged him so tight that Hansol was sure Jeonghan couldn’t breathe very well. It didn’t seem to matter though, because Jeonghan hugged them back equally as tight, tucking their faces into his neck, wrapping his long, powerful tail around each of theirs a couple times like an eel curling around a rock. 

“I’m so happy you’re ok,” he kept saying, over and over, soft, relieved, honest and _raw_. It was one of the rare times Hansol had heard him be vulnerable, allowing himself to let down his walls and genuinely connect with the people he loved. Jeonghan was loving but a little closed-off, a little secretive, so Hansol was glad for the authenticity.

“I’m so sorry,” he whispered into Jeonghan’s shoulder, his own shoulders shaking a little. “This is my fault. I should have stayed with Jihoon.” To that, Jeonghan only cupped his face up so they could make eye contact, and the older siren’s gaze was so loving, soft and warm, and had he possessed tear ducts, Hansol would have started crying. How could Jeonghan forgive him so easily?

“I’m just happy you’re safe,” Jeonghan clicked gently, petting his cheek, leaning in to press a tender kiss to his forehead. “You too, Hao. I can feel you shaking, pup.”

“No ‘m not,” Minghao whispered, but Hansol could see his tail fin quivering. Jeonghan just laughed softly, showering them both with more soft, affectionate kisses, petting their hair and hugging them tight and cloaking the younger two in a feeling of impenetrable safety. Jeonghan just had that effect, an aura of calm that couldn’t be shaken.

The feeling increased when Jeonghan started singing, low and humming and soothing, easing the ache in Hansol’s heart. How long had it been since he’d heard Jeonghan’s voice?

“I missed you,” he finally got out, and Minghao nodded agreement. Jeonghan didn’t pause in his singing, but Hansol felt a slender hand caress his cheek, and he knew Jeonghan felt the same. Jeonghan was always like that; a single touch meant a thousand words, another touch a thousand more. 

“I’m sorry I couldn’t see you sooner. We had to act for a little bit,” Jeonghan said apologetically once he’d stopped singing, and though Hansol instantly missed the loveliness of his voice, it felt good to hear an explanation. It felt better when a hand brushed his hair out of his face, tucking the strands behind his finned ears as Jeonghan was always fond of doing.

“We’ll need to cut this shaggy mop sometime soon,” Jeonghan mused quietly, and Hansol let out a weak chuckle at the casualness of the statement. It was such a Jeonghan thing to say, so motherly and...normal.

“...I kinda like it though,” Minghao mumbled, reaching out to twirl a lock of Hansol’s now shoulder-length hair. “Looks funny.”

“Well then I should definitely cut it,” Hansol huffed, sticking his tongue out childishly, and Minghao snorted out a feeble chuckle, hiding in Jeonghan’s shoulder again. As much as Minghao liked to play the cool guy, he had always loved to hide his face against Jeonghan’s body, huddling behind his fins and sticking close to his side since the day they met. Frankly, Hansol shared the sentiment; when he was with Jeonghan, he felt as though absolutely nothing could hurt him. Jeonghan was just too powerful to let things get out of hand.

“I’m so glad you’re ok,” he heard Jeonghan murmur again, and he felt the older siren’s tail squeeze his in one of his customary full-body hugs, making his entire body feel warm in the cool water. “You’re ok, right?”

“We’re fine, Han,” Minghao assured, his voice muffled from speaking against Jeonghan’s shoulder. “Just glad you’re here.”

“I’ll always find you, no matter what. I promise,” Jeonghan assured, carding his hand through Minghao’s hair. “We’ll all be home soon, ok? We just need to wait for the right time, then everything will be fine.” He sounded so confident, so steady, so sure of himself that Hansol couldn’t help but believe him. Jeonghan could have told him that the ocean was the size of a puddle and Hansol would believe him. 

“You’re eating, right? Taking care of yourself?” Jeonghan checked, unwinding himself from around them to cup Hansol’s cheeks and poke Minghao’s bony hips. “You two were always so thin; it worries me all the time-”

“We’re fine, Han, we promise,” Minghao assured, taking Jeonghan’s hand and lacing their fingers together. Hansol nodded and Jeonghan let out a slow sigh of what was probably relief, giving them both another tight hug. Hansol happily settled against his side as Minghao hid in his flowy curtain of long hair, admiring how Jeonghan’s hair surrounded him like a glowing cloud of fine golden kelp.

“I’ll hurt whoever hurt you,” Jeonghan whispered, his voice a deadly promise. “I’ll drag them down to the abyss and let them suffer.”

“...We just wanna go home,” Minghao mumbled, and Hansol nodded. Jeonghan huffed out a thin laugh, nodding and mumbling his agreement. He sounded tense, and Hansol wondered why. Jeonghan was unshakable. Nothing could knock him down, right?

It was another few minutes before Jeonghan slowly, reluctantly pulled away, fingers still threading through Minghao’s hair. “I would love to stay with you, but I need to go back. Can’t let Seungri know I know you. I’ll get Cheol to carry messages but you need to be really good actors for me, ok? Just for a little while longer. Then we can all go home. Hoonie and Soonyoung and Channie really miss you.”

“We miss them too,” Hansol offered, and Jeonghan laughed softly, kissing his forehead again, doing the same to Minghao.

“We’ll be back before you know it, then you never have to look at the inside of this tank again. I’ll make sure of it,” he assured, still holding their hands as he looked up at Seungcheol, who had sat down on the lip of the tank, just kind of watching awkwardly. Hansol had forgotten he was there. 

“Just a little while longer,” Jeonghan murmured, hugging him and Minghao tight one last time before poking his head above the surface, holding his arms out. “Cheolie, up.”

“ _...Cheolie?_ ” Hansol muttered to Minghao questioningly, who only shrugged, looking considerably downtrodden. Hansol shared the sentiment; losing Jeonghan again when he was right there was like having his parents ripped away from him all over again. He couldn’t even remember his mother’s face, but he thought he might have had a sister once…

“I’ll be messenger, but I don’t know how fast I can be. I can’t look any more suspicious than I already do,” Seungcheol grunted as he crouched to pull Jeonghan out of the water and into his arms, which was a feat, considering how long and heavy Jeonghan’s tail was, unusually serpentine. When asked about where he was from, Jeonghan just pointed down, down, down into the ocean and said “there.” Usually after that, no one pushed for more.

“Be good,” Jeonghan added, comfortingly snappy as usual as he wrapped his arms around Seungcheol’s neck, looking rather content in the Land-Walker’s arms. Hansol didn’t get it, but he nodded.

“...Love you,” he called uneasily, scared that he might not get another chance.

“I love you too,” Minghao clicked, swimming up to the very lip of the tank and pulling himself up a little to be as close to Jeonghan as possible. Hansol followed suit. Jeonghan smiled at them, warm and loving and a little sad, and reached down to pat the tops of their heads, his fingers carding through their wet hair gently like he used to when they were much, much younger, scared and alone and desperate for a parental figure.

“I love you too, my little pups,” Jeonghan said affectionately, and Hansol had to laugh; being called a baby shark was one of Jeonghan’s weirdest, fondest nicknames for him and Chan especially.

“Ready?” Seungcheol prompted, and Jeonghan nodded, a weird expression flickering over his face, hesitant, uneasy, before it disappeared. Hansol dismissed it, hoisting himself up onto the lip of the tank to savor Jeonghan’s calming presence before Seungcheol walked away, taking slow, quiet steps like he wasn’t sure if he would fall over or not. When Jeonghan’s glinting red scales had disappeared from view, Hansol slipped back into the water, sighing quietly.

“We’ll be fine,” Minghao mumbled, but he didn’t sound certain, and Hansol only hummed distantly in response. He felt as though he’d been captured yesterday, foolish and reckless. He was literally trapped in a big tube of water with no control over his surroundings, and it was terrifying, the reality of his situation. If he managed to get back home, he would never even glance at the surface again.

“...What do you think their deal is? Jeonghan and Seungcheol?” Minghao prompted, his voice unnaturally curious as though he wanted to be distracted from the world around them. Hansol grabbed onto that chance with both hands.

“I dunno. They seem...comfortable. At least, Jeonghan did. If Seungcheol is Jeonghan’s kitten, then I feel bad for him,” Hansol chuckled weakly. Minghao let out a feeble laugh, and heavy silence descended, awkward and tense. Hansol had no clue what to say; it was like someone had reached into his throat and plucked out all his words, like someone had taken away his voice for a second, leaving him floundering for a suitable conversation topic.

“...I wonder how the others are doing,” he finally managed, and Minghao’s tail flicked back and forth, not speaking for a second as though thinking very hard about what he wanted to say.

“I’m sure they’re fine. Chan’s stoic,” he shrugged, and Hansol nodded, sinking to sit down on the sand, curling up a little. He missed Chan and his big laugh, mouth stretched wide into a smile. He missed Soonyoung, too, who always made Chan laugh. And he missed Jihoon, who would watch with badly-disguised fondness, arms folded, a tiny, exasperated grin on his face.

Most of all Hansol just missed the ocean. The sea was his home; it flowed in his blood, and to be parted it was almost physically painful. He wanted to go home. The water was too hard to breathe here, the sand rough and gritty, the space far too small. Claustrophobia wasn’t something Hansol thought he had, but if there was a way to develop it, he certainly was. It felt like there was barely enough room to breathe.

Minghao started coughing, rubbing his chest and vainly trying to hide his shaking. Hansol reached up to pat his back uneasily, feeling a bit lightheaded himself. Why was the water being filtered weird again?

He blinked when he remembered that he’d forgotten to ask Seungcheol about the oxygen filter in their tank.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hehehheheheh we're getting closer my children,,,,,  
> feed,,,,,


	29. Paranoia

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seungcheol has about three mental breakdown in one day, talks to Jeonghan, and finds that his memories are not even his own.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Y'all are finally gonna see why the shell is important~~~~
> 
> ALSO !!! Tentative chapter cap is 46 as of right now !! The end is in sight bois !!

Once, when Seungcheol was much younger, his older brother told him a story in the dark about strange sea monsters that lurked deep, deep below the surface, with glowing red eyes and sharp fangs and tough scales, long and slithery like a snake. Sea serpents, he called them. Young and foolish and enamoured with the ocean, Seungcheol had believed him, and he spent the next few nights staying up as long as he could, peering out into the sea with a flashlight and a pair of binoculars, breathing shallowly as he watched for any sight of wicked eyes and a jaw full of teeth, paranoid that one might crawl out of the water to eat him whole.

That same feeling accompanied him now, surrounding him like a dark, hungry cloud. The suspicious, anxious nervousness had started the moment he agreed to help Hansol and Minghao back to the ocean, paranoid that somehow, Seungri or Seunghyun might find out something they weren’t supposed to. It only got stronger the longer they went on, especially when they got Jeonghan.

Something that both calmed him and made him even more high-strung was Joshua showing up a few days after he put Jeonghan into a separate tank, bold and confident and calm as though he owned the place. Seungcheol had all but screamed when he saw the magician just walk into the room, since Minhyuk and a couple other people were there, but Joshua just smiled at Seungcheol and winked.

“Hey Minhyuk. How’s the research going?” Joshua called casually, and Minhyuk gave him a grin like they’d known each other all their lives.

“It’s going fine, Josh,” Minhyuk called back easily. Seungcheol stared at them, not even bothering to hide his surprise. Then, without warning, he grabbed Joshua’s wrist and dragged him into a separate room, practically tearing his hair out.

“What are you _doing_?” he whispered frantically, fingers digging into Joshua’s biceps. “You can’t just walk in here- how the hell did you even get in!? Actually, stupid question, you’re a wizard. But that’s besides the point- why are you here??”

“Calm down. It’s ok,” Joshua murmured, touching his cheek, and suddenly Seungcheol felt a great breath of air flow into his lungs, slowly making him less shaky. The bind around his neck squeezed once, warm and constant. Seungcheol loosened his grip, a bit stunned, wondering what Joshua had just done to slow his racing heart.

“Sorry for showing up unannounced. I figured it would be easier. I’m not the best at memory manipulation, but I’ve made so that they think they know me. To them, I’m just Josh, the guy who usually works from home but shows up occasionally to help. Nothing super big or important. I’m pretty much faceless.” While he talked, he pet Seungcheol’s cheek, but Seungcheol, frankly, was too absorbed in listening to him talk to really register the pleasant sensation. 

“...Oh,” Seungcheol finally mumbled. Joshua smiled, petting his cheek one last time before stepping back. Seungcheol tried not to feel so disappointed.

“I need to find Jeonghan. Where is he? Just give me directions,” he asked quickly, voice dropping to a whisper.

“He’s in the new species room, which is across the hall from the tanks. You’ll see a green door; that’s the one,” Seungcheol instructed. Joshua gave him a charming smile.

“Perfect, thanks Cheolie. If you don’t see me leave, don’t worry about it.”

And that was it. Seungcheol hadn’t seen Joshua for the rest of the day. It left him both soothed by physical contact and frazzled by such an unexpected event. He needed to take a break from looking at cute boys and alluring sirens; one of those days, Jeonghan and Joshua would give him a heart attack or something.

All comfort left him when, the next day, Seokmin walked up to him, pale and uneasy. Before Seungcheol could even ask if he was ok, Seokmin grabbed his arm and whispered something even scarier than the threat of sea serpents:

“Seungri’s fucking with the oxygen filter in Hansol and Minghao’s tank.”

Seungcheol blinked at him. “...What?”

“Seun-Seungri’s doing something with the oxygen levels. He’s lowering them to a really dangerous point,” Seokmin hissed, dragging Seungcheol to a more private area. “I saw Minghao coughing a lot so I checked on a whim and they were basically swimming in polluted water. The water’s still clean, but for us it would be like trying to breathe on the top of Mount Everest.”

“Did you raise it?” Seungcheol was stunned. Again, why would Seungri do that?

Did...did he know?

“Of course I did, idiot, I’m not stupid. I mean, I caught him doing it too. I was paranoid so I put a tiny camera next to the stuff that regulates the oxygen, and lo and behold, Seungri comes and fiddles with the computer. If Hansol and Minghao can’t get enough oxygen, they're going to suffocate.”

Seungcheol’s stomach swooped unpleasantly, like he’d missed a step going down the stairs, and he instinctively swung his head around to look in the direction of Hansol and Minghao’s tank.

“They’re fine now; I changed to back,” Seokmin assured, patting his arm, but Seungcheol was still uneasy.

“...Why would Seungri do that?” he wondered aloud. “...Wait. You said you caught him on tape, right?” He gripped Seokmin’s shoulder tightly, and the younger nodded.

“I mean, I did, but if you’re thinking of using it, we can’t. There’s no way to tell for sure if Seungri was messing with the oxygen levels. He could have been rearranging his calendar for all the recording says. I just know that he was hanging around the computer,” Seokmin sighed, and Seungcheol deflated. If they could have Seungri kicked out for mistreatment, then things would be so much easier…

“Well, keep an eye on the oxygen filter, alright?” he finally offered, and Seokmin nodded solemnly. 

“I know. How’s Jeonghan?”

“He’s doing fine. He needed a bigger tank because his tail was so long but other than that he’s good. He wants to see Hansol and Minghao real bad and I want to help, but…”

“But you have to wait,” Seokmin finished with a sigh and a nod. “Well, you can do it soon. I just hope nothing goes too bad.”

“Don’t jinx it,” Seungcheol muttered, glancing around as though Seungri or Seunghyun might pop up and ask what they were talking about. That would be hard to explain. Seokmin huffed out a dry laugh; lately he’d been less bright, and Seungcheol shared the sentiment. Stress was making even Jun fall asleep at work, and Mingyu looked distracted all the time, constantly rubbing his temples and his left wrist. Seungcheol knew he was trying to feel the bind there; he did the same, fluttering his fingers over his neck to try and touch the invisible collar around his neck.

Sighing, Seungcheol patted Seokmin’s shoulder. “Well, at least we know something’s up. If something else happens, let me know.”

“Aye aye, captain,” Seokmin chuckled weakly, and Seungcheol mustered up the strength to give him a half-assed smile. Most of him was too worried to smile.

“I’m sure it’ll be ok. Seungri probably isn’t stupid enough to try again.” Seokmin sounded fairly confident, and Seungcheol really, really wanted to believe that, but somehow, he just...couldn’t. He didn’t know what Seungri would do. The older man was unpredictable, and that was dangerous on so many levels. 

But they still had to try.

* * *

For whatever reason, after finding out about the oxygen mishap, Seungcheol went to Jeonghan. It was almost three in the morning (Seungcheol didn’t want to take _any_ chances), but he had been told by Hansol that most sirens were nocturnal, so he was fairly certain Jeonghan would be awake. He wondered what the pretty siren did while he was waiting. He wondered what Joshua had said to him. He wondered a lot of things.

Mostly, he wondered if he was being watched. That icky, crawling feeling was still lingering in his palms and on his back, and he was constantly ruffling up the hairs at the base of his neck aggressively, trying hard to rid himself of the feeling of eyes on his body. He hated it, and yet, it wouldn’t go away no matter what he did.

Hearing soft, angelic singing calmed him significantly, and as he pulled back the cloth on Jeonghan’s tank (that time, it was Seungri who didn’t want to take any chances), he smiled in slight relief at seeing Jeonghan unharmed, singing casually.

If he was being honest, Jeonghan brought back some of the weird emotions from his childhood, a mix of slight fear, burning curiosity, and adolescent wonder. Jeonghan’s tail was long, serpentine, easily two and a half times his torso, longer than Hansol’s and Minghao’s, and it was clearly quite flexible, able to move in all directions instead of mostly just back and forth like Hansol and Minghao. In addition with the needle-sharp fangs, glowing red eyes and blood-red scales, sometimes Seungcheol wondered if Jeonghan was the sea serpent his brother had described. Hansol had told him sirens lived extremely long lives, so it might have been possible…

With quick, quiet steps, he unlocked the lid and ever-so-slowly tilted it out of the way, watching in fascination as Jeonghan hoisted himself out of the tank a little, water cascading down his body. He was far too beautiful for Seungcheol’s health, and yet, Seungcheol stared anyway, plopping onto the floor with crossed legs like an elementary school child.

“Hi there,” Jeonghan whispered, breaking the silence.

“Hey,” Seungcheol offered lamely. Jeonghan sent him a smile through the dark, a smile that looked eerily similar to Joshua’s. Seungcheol glanced over his shoulder to check if the magician was there, just in case; Joshua had a nasty habit of popping up from shadows unannounced. 

“Are you here to chat or deliver news?” Jeonghan prompted, laying his cheek on his folded arms, swishing his tail fin through the water lazily.

“...I- I dunno. Just wanted to check in, I guess.” Not completely a lie. Partly, Seungcheol had just dropped by to stop feeling so...so _watched._  Jeonghan’s powerful aura effectively canceled out any feeling of eyes that Seungcheol experienced, and he was hungry for that relief.

“How sweet,” Jeonghan chuckled, and Seungcheol looked away, a little embarrassed. “Are things going ok?”

“They’re going fine,” he said automatically. He didn’t want to tell Jeonghan about the oxygen thing; that could still have just been a mistake. There was no concrete proof yet, so Seungcheol didn’t want to alarm the pretty siren unnecessarily. “...Did Joshua drop by earlier? He just kind of showed up unannounced and almost gave me a heart attack…”

“Oh, yeah, he does that,” Jeonghan said mildly, waving a hand dismissively. For some reason, the nails on his right hand were shorter and blunter than Seungcheol remembered. “But yes, he did talk to me in the morning. Talked to me a bit, told me some things.” While he spoke, he smiled softly, and it wasn’t one of his usual clever smirks. It was just...a smile, a small, soft, genuine smile. For some reason, Seungcheol felt flustered.

“...You really like him, don’t you?” he said without thinking, and Jeonghan sent him a surprised look, like he hadn’t expected Seungcheol to call him out on it.

“...Yes, I do. We grew up together,” Jeonghan said, like it was obvious. “We’ve been together for...a long, long time. A very long time. Longer than you can imagine, surely.” Cryptic. Fun. Seungcheol was crushing on two old men and he couldn’t find it in himself to be ashamed of that at all.

“...Oh,” he said, because he couldn’t think of anything else to say. Jeonghan looked very pretty indeed in the dim light, red scales glowing warm in the faint light from the bulbs on the bottom of his tank. He looked straight out of a fairy tale book, and Seungcheol wanted to take a picture of him, maybe get a painting commissioned. Would that be pretentious?

“But you seem to like him too, no?” Seungcheol was violently shaken out of his daze by that question, and he stammered incoherently for a few seconds, throwing his hands around in wordless protest, completely caught off guard by the siren’s small, clever grin, firmly back in place.

“Ok, ok, simpler question: do you think he’s pretty?” Jeonghan tried again, smirking at him. Seungcheol felt prickly, uncomfortable heat crawl up his neck, and he looked away.

“...Yes?” he offered tentatively. Jeonghan laughed, and, to Seungcheol’s surprise, the sound wasn’t mysteriously melodious or alluring. It was halted and high-pitched and real, somehow more attractive for its staccato rhythm. Seungcheol stared at him for a second, wide-eyed, entranced by something as simple as a laugh. He wanted to point it out, to compliment Jeonghan on it, but his cowardly heart wouldn’t let him do it, so he just listened until Jeonghan calmed down, grinning at him.

“Oh, you are so precious,” Jeonghan cooed, reaching out of the tank to brush the back of his hand down Seungcheol’s cheek. “Like a little beagle puppy. Joshua showed me one of those once; you have the same eyes. I bet you’d be happy if I pet you, right?” Before Seungcheol could even think of saying something, there were long, gentle fingers threading through his hair, and he froze. 

Now, Seungcheol wouldn’t say he was touch-starved, per se, but he did love contact of any kind; big hugs were totally his jam. His friends were affectionate enough, but it wasn’t quite the same as plain-old soft intimacy between Seungcheol and someone he loved. It was just that usually, Seungcheol didn’t have time to cuddle, or he had no one to cuddle with.

So Seungcheol was appropriately shocked by the gesture, not moving into it or away from it, just letting it happen. Jeonghan’s fingers, which had once landed oh-so threateningly on his thigh, were now gentle, a bit damp, cool against his head. Jeonghan even scritched at the spot behind his ear, (thankfully) blunt nails running over the sensitive skin and lighting up all sorts of warm-fuzzy-happy nerves. 

Oh. Oh boy. That was a Good Touch. Seungcheol slowly, hesitantly leaned into Jeonghan’s petting, imaginary tail perking up and wagging. He closed his eyes contentedly, barely hearing Jeonghan’s soft giggle. It had been a long time since someone petted him…

“You’re so cute,” Jeonghan hummed, breaking Seungcheol out of his trance. Immediately, he went beet-red, jerking his head back, his cheeks flaming. He really shouldn’t have gotten so into that…

“Sorry,” he whispered, but Jeonghan made a dismissive noise, and Seungcheol felt a cool fingertip poke his forehead.

“No apologizing. You’re a cute puppy and I see why Shua put you on a leash,” he huffed, and _boy_ , would that be an appropriate time to ask if Jeonghan understood human innuendos?

Double-entendres aside, he glanced down at his watch. It was almost 3:45; he’d been there for longer than he thought. If he wanted to function properly the next morning (or as properly as he could), he should probably head out soon.

“Are you going to leave?” Jeonghan’s voice fell oddly quiet, soft, thoughtful, and Seungcheol’s head jerked up.

“N-no, I mean, if you want me to, I can beat it,” he offered, half rising, but Jeonghan’s hand flashed out and grabbed his sleeve, tugging him back down.

“No, sit, stay. I enjoy your company,” Jeonghan urged. Seungcheol hesitated before settling, and Jeonghan gave him another one of those small, genuine smiles before going back to his usual “I know things you don’t” smirk, which was equally as disarming.

“Y’know, I wasn’t sure about you at first, but I have to admit, I’m glad I met you. I’m even more glad you bought that shell from Shua,” Jeonghan said slowly, head tilting to the side in a cattish way, and Seungcheol furrowed his brows, trying to remember what Jeonghan was talking about. What did that have to do with that shell he got?

“...What does this have to do with the shell I got?” he asked, confused and curious. Jeonghan smiled at him, thin lips stretched wide in a closed-mouth smirk, red eyes half-narrowed.

“You really don’t know how binds work, do you?” Jeonghan sighed, almost a little pitying. Seungcheol frowned.

“...I’m not a wizard, Jeonghan.”

“Yes, I’m perfectly aware. You see,” Jeonghan began, settling himself more comfortably, “me and Shua happen to like you, so you’re special. I bet you’ve wondered why your bind is around your neck instead of your wrist.” Seungcheol’s hand involuntarily rose to touch his neck, and he nodded slowly. Jeonghan’s smile thinned, became more amused, like he was imagining some complex inside joke that Seungcheol would never understand.

Jeonghan’s long, thin fingers trailed across his throat, and Seungcheol shuddered. “Shua’s no one-trick pony. He’s powerful, and it would do everyone good to remember that. He has an affinity for...time, you see. Remembers all of his memories, from the second he was born to now. Can make things grow or regress. He can do a whole lot more, of course, but time is his specialty. In fact he’s functionally immortal if he doesn’t get hurt in some physical way.”

...That was a lot to take in.

“...And the shell?” Jeonghan smiled at his quiet, faintly-shaking voice, still running his fingers back and forth over Seungcheol’s neck, occasionally caressing his collar bones.

“Insurance. When Joshua touches people, he can see their memories. He can transfer said memories to certain objects. What Shua did was he took your memories, your sense of time, and tied them to that shell,” Jeonghan explained slowly. “You still remember everything, of course, but if Shua breaks that shell, and only he can break it, then you’re going to wake up the next morning with no recollection of who you even are.”

Seungcheol stared, wide-eyed. He didn’t know what to say. That was...mildly terrifying. What if he messed up? What if he fucked something up on accident and Joshua destroyed his memories in revenge? What if-

“Calm down, puppy. Joshua wouldn’t do that without very good reason,” Jeonghan assured, petting his hair again and easily soothing his frazzled thoughts. Then, salaciously, he winked.

“Don’t worry. Your memories are in very _skilled_ hands.”

Seungcheol couldn’t help himself; he laughed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just some nice tasty foreshadowing, nothin' special (Seungcheol's not a furry I promise)
> 
> Also guess what Joshua and Jeonghan were doing while they were alone ;;;;;)


	30. A Deal Promised

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seungkwan has a chat with Mingyu as they go on a walk. When Seungkwan takes them both to the palace, they find something that could potentially put them all in danger.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know you guys wanted Seungkwan to go to the lab, but,,,,,, just wait a little longer !!! Have these crumbs for now~~

Seungkwan was fuming. Not only had Joshua not given him the files back, but when he’d gone down to the lab at 4:30 with Wonwoo, Joshua had told him to go back. Granted, Joshua had seemed very stressed indeed, but Seungkwan was still annoyed. He wanted to see the inside of the lab, thank you very much!

...And he kind of needed those files. He didn’t know what Joshua was going to do with them, but Seungkwan was gonna need them back soon if he didn’t want to get beat up by Minho. 

“Just let him work. Joshua knows what he’s doing,” Wonwoo sighed when Seungkwan asked him about it.

“Does he?” Seungkwan countered, and Wonwoo didn’t answer for a couple seconds, staring out into the water. They’d been hanging out on the beach for a while, and even though it was always Seungkwan’s favorite place to be, on that day it felt...foreboding, for some reason. Seungkwan knew that the sea could be both compassionate and merciless, and with the way dark storm clouds were gathering over the horizon, he felt like it was leaning more towards merciless.

“...A storm brings change,” was all Wonwoo said in response, eyes glazed over. Seungkwan gave him a look, turned back to the ocean, and didn’t push any further.

* * *

Somehow, Seungkwan found himself talking to Mingyu, who he’d run into while wandering around, reluctant to go home but equally reluctant to go back to Joshua’s library. Thankfully, Mingyu was good company, funny and dorky and a little puppy-like in a way that Wonwoo probably liked.

“‘A storm brings change’? Emo,” Mingyu huffed, and Seungkwan threw his hands up.

“I know, right? I just wish I knew what the hell is going on. It’s not fair that everyone else gets magic but we don’t.” Mingyu nodded sagely, rubbing his left wrist, and Seungkwan unconsciously did the same. The binds had been tightening as of late, and sometimes, late at night, Seungkwan could feel a more intense warmth, close to burning but not quite. He wondered what it meant. 

“Well, if anything, I guess that we at least have good backup,” Mingyu reasoned, hopping down a slight incline to a small park. “If we have sirens and a wizard on our team, what could possibly go wrong?”

“Don’t jinx it, idiot,” Seungkwan muttered, glancing around. He’d been more and more antsy ever since this whole debacle started and it wasn’t getting better. “I mean...I guess you’re right, but like...what if something happens that we can’t control?”

“...Then we’ll deal with it if it happens,” Mingyu said, more quietly. “I’m sure things will go fine, Seungkwan. No one will get hurt.”

“...I sure hope so.”

The two of them continued down the incline of the park, watching the sky slowly turn from blue to grey, clouds rolling in as the day moved on.

“...You think it’s gonna rain?” Mingyu asked, somewhat unnecessarily.

“Bet,” Seungkwan sighed. Then he perked up, an idea popping into his mind. Why hadn’t he thought of this before? It was so easy! “Hey, do you think you could let me into the lab?” he asked excitedly, coming to a stop to face Mingyu head-on. “I can just say I’m checking in if anyone gets suspicious and that way I can meet Hansol and Minghao!”

Mingyu’s wary expression made his hopes fall, but he was determined. “...Please, Mingyu?”

“...Seungkwan, that’s kind of...dangerous,” Mingyu sighed, but Seungkwan straightened up, narrowing his eyes. Mingyu seemed to take the hint that Seungkwan wouldn’t take no for an answer and sighed again. “...I’ll see what I can do.”

“Good. I’m not a child, Mingyu, and if I’m going to be part of this plan, I need to know what grounds we’re working on,” Seungkwan said simply, and Mingyu gave him a weird, unreadable look. Seungkwan decided to ignore it, hopping over a low step and heading back down to the main road, Mingyu trailing after him.

“...How does it feel? Y’know, to be royalty?” Mingyu asked all of a sudden, and Seungkwan paused, a little surprised.

“Mm...when you’ve been this way all your life it feels normal, I guess,” Seungkwan offered, shrugging. “I mean, I’m not better than any of you. I’m just a person who happened to be born into a high-class family. It’s got a lot of responsibility, and I want to be able to shoulder that responsibility some day because I wanna be a good king, but if I’m being honest?” He glanced around for comedic effect before leaning in towards Mingyu, who tilted his head closer.

“It’s really fuckin’ boring,” he hissed, and Mingyu laughed, looking brighter than before.

“I bet,” he said sympathetically, lacing his hands together behind his head like some kind of anime boy. “What do you even _do_ all day? Do you get to decide who lives or dies?”

“Nah, that’s more my mom’s jurisdiction,” Seungkwan said with a shrug and Mingyu’s expression grew amusingly alarmed. “...Just kidding. I mean, it’s a lot of like, studying, actually. I have to learn a shit ton of history, etiquette, how to dance, all boring things. Our kingdom is so geographically closed-off that I don’t even know why I would have to learn how to dance! It’s not like I get suitors. It’s just a lot of stuff that I feel like I don’t have to learn.”

“...Sounds rough,” Mingyu offered, and Seungkwan sighed a sigh of long-suffering.

“It is. It’s not difficult, I guess, just…”

“Tedious?”

“Yeah. Kind of unnecessary. I don’t have a lot of power since I’m still just a prince, but I can do basic things like checking up on the community and receiving delegations. Not that anyone comes to visit this place. I do kind of like learning how to dance though.” He shrugged again, and Mingyu hummed, letting his arms down to swing by his sides. “What about you? What do you do all day?”

“Well, aside from our wild siren shenanigans, it’s pretty typical. You get up, go to work, do whatever’s assigned to you for that day. It can vary depending on what’s going on, but a lot of it is just documenting species and behaviors and figuring out what variable does what to what animal. I mean, I’ve been overseeing some of the aquarium work with Seokmin, and one of their octopi got out of her tank specifically to shoot a squirt of water at a lightbulb that was annoying her, then got back into her tank like it didn’t happen.”

“...Wow,” Seungkwan hummed.

“Yeah. But with what’s going on right now, everything’s kinda...messed up.” Mingyu tilted his head back and forth in a kind of “it is what it is” way, lips twisting to the side. “At least we’re doing something cool.”

“And possibly life-threatening.”

“Hey, what’s life without a little risk?” Mingyu snorted, ducking under a low-hanging sign and heading off down the sidewalk. “But speaking of risk, if you wanna get into the lab, you’re gonna have to have a good cover. Seungri is the most suspicious motherfucker to walk on this earth.”

“Duly noted,” Seungkwan hummed, glancing up at the now-cloudy sky. “D’you think I could get away by saying I’m just doing a check-up? Like, going around town and like asking if people are happy ‘n stuff?”

“Maybe? The sirens are supposed to be top secret,” Mingyu reminded, and Seungkwan swore under his breath.

“Uh...ok. When does Seungri not work?”

“Almost never. He takes days off sometimes but nobody knows when they’re gonna come up. Besides, with how shady he’s been acting, I don’t think he’ll be gone away from the lab that often these days.”

“...Well that’s just great. Describe Hansol and Minghao for me.”

Mingyu hummed again, pulling out his phone. “Hansol looks kinda foreign, I guess, and so does Minghao but in a different way. Here, I have pictures… Here, this one’s Minghao.”

Seungkwan took the phone offered, peering curiously at the screen. Staring back at him was an oriental-looking siren, all sharp edges and long lines, a graceful neck and thin lips, his scaly tail patterned like a koi in red, white, and black, his tail and dorsal fins flowy and translucent. “...He looks aggressive.”

“He is. Was, I guess,” Mingyu laughed, leaning over and swiping to the right. “This one’s Hansol. He’s a lot more...mild-mannered.”

 _“Oh. He’s pretty,”_ was the first thought that crossed Seungkwan’s mind. Hansol was...very handsome, with high cheekbones, a straight nose, and interesting eyes, double-lidded and curious. His tail was a striking gold color, fins more sleek than flowy, and his body was more compact. Were those abs, or was Seungkwan just seeing things?

“...Oh my god, you’re turning into Jun.”

“What does that mean?” Seungkwan huffed, shoving Mingyu’s phone back into his hands, hoping to god that his cheeks weren’t pink. 

“You like him, don’t you? You think he’s cute~” Seungkwan was going to slap that smug look right off of Mingyu’s stupid face if he didn’t shut up right then and there-

“I just think he looks interesting,” he huffed, and Mingyu grinned.

“Sure. I’ll take your word for it, buddy.”

“Mingyu?”

“Mm?”

“Shut up.”

“Wow. Rude.” Mingyu gave him another insufferable smirk before coming to a stop near some railings where they could see the ocean, the waves getting more and more choppy. Seungkwan joined him, stepping up onto the lowest rung and smiling as the sea air hit his face, cool and refreshing and salty. “...So what’re you gonna do when you become king?”

“Govern,” Seungkwan sighed, shrugging. “I’m planning on making a part of the beach off-limits so people won’t mess it up.”

“Sounds good,” Mingyu nodded, sounding more thoughtful than before. Seungkwan just hummed again. When he became king...he didn’t really want to think about that. He was still young; he could wait.

“...Wait, aren’t you supposed to be at work?”

“I got a few hours off to talk to my parents. Don’t worry about it. Don’t you have...prince things to be doing?”

“My mom kinda like, kicked me out of the house for a while, so oh well. I prefer being outside anyway. And if you’re gonna be out here with me, lemme show you something cool. You can keep your mouth shut, right?” Seungkwan hopped off of the railing, and Mingyu nodded, looking curious.

“Depends on what? Where are we going?” Mingyu asked, leaning over his shoulder as Seungkwan headed back to the castle, humming amiably.

“You’ll see.”

“...Kwan, are we going to the palace?”

“Yep! Just keep your mouth shut and follow me. I’m gonna show you something cool that might come in handy later. You just need to promise to not tell anyone else. Got it?” Seungkwan held out his pinky finger in a mildly threatening way, and Mingyu, though bemused, linked their pinkies together, nodding.

“Got it. Now...lead the way, your highness.”

“Shut.” 

Within 15 minutes they had gotten to where Seungkwan wanted to be, and he dropped to the ground to wiggle underneath the little hole in the fence, dusting himself off once he’d stood up again. “C’mon, follow me! I know you’re stupidly tall but you’ll fit,” he encouraged, glancing around. He knew no one was around this area of the yard, but it never hurt to check.

“...I think I’m stuck.”

“You are _not_ stuck, you oaf, oh my god, come on…” Feeling more and more antsy by the minute, Seungkwan leaned down to yank Mingyu free of the fence, dragging him upright and pulling him over to the hidden panel.

“Seungkwan, what are you doing?” Mingyu prompted warily, but Seungkwan just shushed him, brushing all the dirt and dust aside before grinning triumphantly, punching in the combination on the panel before lifting it aside. 

“Hurry, hurry, get in!” he urged, slipping inside without waiting to see if Mingyu would follow. “This leads right into the library,” he added once the tunnel had gone black around him.

“...So this is just...here?” Mingyu whispered.

“Yep. I love this. It lets me slip out any time I want,” Seungkwan said cheerfully, and when the tunnel started sloping up, he reached out and groped around until he felt the loose panel click up, allowing him to push it away. “I have no idea how this got here, but it’s been wildly helpful.”

“...Why are you showing me?” Mingyu asked warily, and Seungkwan shrugged, peeking out of the tunnel warily. The library was empty; good.

“Just in case. If any of you ever need a place to get away, or like, need to find me quickly, the combination is 1317. I mean...yeah. Just...don’t tell anyone, ok?”

“Duly noted,” Mingyu muttered, sounding both awed and a little subdued. Seungkwan snorted, hefting himself out of the tunnel before helping Mingyu to his feet, huffing about how tall he was.

“Wow,” was the first thing Mingyu said when he looked around, eyes wide. “Nice library. Wonwoo would like it.”

“You _like_ him~”

“...Touche. Now what exactly are we doing here?”

“Well, I wanna grab something from my room, so there’s that, and I also wanna show you around. If anyone asks I can just say you’re a friend. I’m friends with everyone in the town anyway, so it won’t even be a problem,” Seungkwan said brightly, walking over to the library doors and peeking through them. So far, the hallways were empty.

“...This feels like a Mission Impossible movie,” Mingyu mumbled, and Seungkwan ignored him, walking down the hall as quietly as possible. He didn’t know why, but something in him demanded he be as quiet as possible. “What are you getting?”

“Something,” Seungkwan hissed, waving a hand dismissively. He was just going to grab his laptop so he could use it outside, but his chest felt heavy and his heart was beating faster than normal and the bind around his wrist was growing hotter and hotter, almost uncomfortably so. Something was going to happen, but he didn’t know what.

Thankfully, he was able to snag his laptop from his room without anyone popping up on them, and he gave Mingyu a very scarce, impromptu tour as they hurried back to the library, pointing down halls and quickly telling him where they led to. There wasn’t nearly enough time to give him a detailed guide, but hopefully, Mingyu would never need to know where everything was. If everything went smoothly, then they would have no need to use the tunnel. That was backup only.

When they got back into the library, Seungkwan pushed at Mingyu’s back to get him to go faster, anxiousness and unease rippling in his bones and making him grind his teeth together. He had no idea why he was so nervous, but he didn’t like how slow things were going.

“Hey, hey, calm down! The tunnel isn’t going anywhere. Are you ok?” Mingyu whisper-hissed at him, and Seungkwan just pushed at him harder, hands starting to shake.

“Don’t do this right now, Mingyu, just hurry up and _go-_!”

They both froze when the door to the library opened, two pairs of footsteps walking in. The big bookcases protected them from view, but they stayed perfectly still anyway, hardly daring to breathe.

“So, you want to tell me that sirens are real, and you want to give them to me?” Seungkwan’s eyes widened in surprise at the voice of his mother, and he exchanged a horrified look with Mingyu, who slapped a hand over his own mouth.

“Yes. I showed you the pictures, did I not? I assure you, they’re very real. I have an inkling you might be able to talk to them as well.”

“ _Seungri_ ,” Mingyu mouthed, brows furrowed, expression kind of desperate. Seungkwan disliked him immediately; he didn’t even really know what Seungri looked like, but his voice was oily and too smooth to be trustworthy.

“...I assume you ask for a hefty price for these...sirens?”

“Oh, no, I plan on giving them to you as a gift. They would make a lovely addition to the palace. All I ask for in return is access to the police records.” Seungkwan covered his mouth with both of his hands to fight a fearful whimper, eyes wide, chest heaving. The bind around his wrist was painfully hot, but he barely felt it.

“And why would you want those?”

“So I can find out who killed my daughter. Simple. I just want to know so I can put her spirit to rest.”

There was a long silence, and Seungkwan was starting to feel light headed from not breathing.

“...Fine. You have a deal. I’ll give you unlimited access for one week, but not any more, or else things will get complicated. Does that sound fair?”

“It sounds amazing, your highness. Expect the sirens within a week.”

There was the sound of footsteps walking away, out of the library, and when the door closed, Seungkwan sucked in a frantic breath of air, his heart going a million miles per hour as he grabbed Mingyu’s shoulders.

“We need to tell everyone.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hehe
> 
> Also I feel like this story doesn't get nearly as much revenue as Good Things did and I'm certainly not complaining I just wonder why  
> I feel like everyone (including yours truly) just really loves angst


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